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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Essays, Volume V, by T. H. Huxley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Collected Essays, Volume V
+       Science and Christian Tradition: Essays
+
+Author: T. H. Huxley
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2005 [EBook #15905]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME V ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+COLLECTED ESSAYS; VOLUME V
+
+SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION
+
+BY THOMAS H. HUXLEY
+
+NEW YORK, D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1902
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+"For close upon forty years I have been writing with one purpose; from
+time to time, I have fought for that which seemed to me the truth,
+perhaps still more, against that which I have thought error; and, in
+this way, I have reached, indeed over-stepped, the threshold of old
+age. There, every earnest man has to listen to the voice within: 'Give
+an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.'
+
+"That I have been an unjust steward my conscience does not bear
+witness. At times blundering, at times negligent, Heaven knows: but,
+on the whole, I have done that which I felt able and called upon to
+do; and I have done it without looking to the right or to the left;
+seeking no man's favor, fearing no man's disfavor.
+
+"But what is it that I have been doing? In the end one's conceptions
+should form a whole, though only parts may have found utterance, as
+occasion arose; now do these exhibit harmony and mutual connexion? In
+one's zeal much of the old gets broken to pieces; but has one made
+ready something new, fit to be set in the place of the old?
+
+"That they merely destroy without reconstructing, is the especial
+charge, with which those who work in this direction are constantly
+reproached. In a certain sense I do not defend myself against the
+charge; but I deny that any reproach is deserved.
+
+"I have never proposed to myself to begin outward construction;
+because I do not believe that the time has come for it. Our present
+business is with inward preparation, especially the preparation of
+those who have ceased to be content with the old, and find no
+satisfaction in half measures. I have wished, and I still wish, to
+disturb no man's peace of mind, no man's beliefs; but only to point
+out to those in whom they are already shattered, the direction in
+which, in my conviction, firmer ground lies."[1]
+
+So wrote one of the protagonists of the New Reformation--and a
+well-abused man if ever there was one--a score of years since, in the
+remarkable book in which he discusses the negative and the positive
+results of the rigorous application of scientific method to the
+investigation of the higher problems of human life.
+
+Recent experience leads me to imagine that there may be a good many
+countrymen of my own, even at this time, to whom it may be profitable
+to read, mark and inwardly digest, the weighty words of the author of
+that "Leben Jesu," which, half a century ago, stirred the religious
+world so seriously that it has never settled down again quite on the
+old foundations; indeed, some think it never will. I have a personal
+interest in the carrying out of the recommendation I venture to make.
+It may enable many worthy persons, in whose estimation I should really
+be glad to stand higher than I do, to become aware of the possibility
+that my motives in writing the essays, contained in this and the
+preceding volume, were not exactly those that they ascribe to me.
+
+I too have reached the term at which the still, small voice, more
+audible than any other to the dulled ear of age, makes its demand; and
+I have found that it is of no sort of use to try to cook the accounts
+rendered. Nevertheless, I distinctly decline to admit some of the
+items charged; more particularly that of having "gone out of my way"
+to attack the Bible; and I as steadfastly deny that "hatred of
+Christianity" is a feeling with which I have any acquaintance. There
+are very few things which I find it permissible to hate; and though,
+it may be, that some of the organisations, which arrogate to
+themselves the Christian name, have richly earned a place in the
+category of hateful things, that ought to have nothing to do with
+one's estimation of the religion, which they have perverted and
+disfigured out of all likeness to the original.
+
+The simple fact is that, as I have already more than once hinted, my
+story is that of the wolf and the lamb over again. I have never "gone
+out of my way" to attack the Bible, or anything else: it was the
+dominant ecclesiasticism of my early days, which, as I believe,
+without any warrant from the Bible itself, thrust the book in my way.
+
+I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of
+exploring a certain province of natural knowledge; I strayed no hair's
+breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue;
+and yet I found that, whatever route I took, before long, I came to a
+tall and formidable-looking fence. Confident as I might be in the
+existence of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood
+the thorny barrier with its comminatory notice-board--"No
+Thoroughfare. By order. Moses." There seemed no way over; nor did the
+prospect of creeping round, as I saw some do, attract me. True there
+was no longer any cause to fear the spring guns and man-traps set by
+former lords of the manor; but one is apt to get very dirty going on
+all-fours. The only alternatives were either to give up my
+journey--which I was not minded to do--or to break the fence down and
+go through it.
+
+Now I was and am, by nature, a law-abiding person, ready and willing
+to submit to all legitimate authority. But I also had and have a
+rooted conviction, that reasonable assurance of the legitimacy should
+precede the submission; so I made it my business to look up the
+manorial title-deeds. The pretensions of the ecclesiastical "Moses" to
+exercise a control over the operations of the reasoning faculty in the
+search after truth, thirty centuries after his age, might be
+justifiable; but, assuredly, the credentials produced in justification
+of claims so large required careful scrutiny.
+
+Singular discoveries rewarded my industry. The ecclesiastical "Moses"
+proved to be a mere traditional mask, behind which, no doubt, lay the
+features of the historical Moses--just as many a medi�val fresco has
+been hidden by the whitewash of Georgian churchwardens. And as the
+�sthetic rector too often scrapes away the defacement, only to find
+blurred, parti-coloured patches, in which the original design is no
+longer to be traced; so, when the successive layers of Jewish and
+Christian traditional pigment, laid on, at intervals, for near three
+thousand years, had been removed, by even the tenderest critical
+operations, there was not much to be discerned of the leader of the
+Exodus.
+
+Only one point became perfectly clear to me, namely, that Moses is not
+responsible for nine-tenths of the Pentateuch; certainly not for the
+legends which had been made the bugbears of science. In fact, the
+fence turned out to be a mere heap of dry sticks and brushwood, and
+one might walk through it with impunity: the which I did. But I was
+still young, when I thus ventured to assert my liberty; and young
+people are apt to be filled with a kind of _s�va indignatio_, when
+they discover the wide discrepancies between things as they seem and
+things as they are. It hurts their vanity to feel that they have
+prepared themselves for a mighty struggle to climb over, or break
+their way through, a rampart, which turns out, on close approach, to
+be a mere heap of ruins; venerable, indeed, and arch�ologically
+interesting, but of no other moment. And some fragment of the
+superfluous energy accumulated is apt to find vent in strong language.
+
+Such, I suppose, was my case, when I wrote some passages which occur
+in an essay reprinted among "Darwiniana."[2] But when, not long ago
+"the voice" put it to me, whether I had better not expunge, or modify,
+these passages; whether, really, they were not a little too strong; I
+had to reply, with all deference, that while, from a merely literary
+point of view, I might admit them to be rather crude, I must stand by
+the substance of these items of my expenditure. I further ventured to
+express the conviction that scientific criticism of the Old Testament,
+since 1860, has justified every word of the estimate of the authority
+of the ecclesiastical "Moses" written at that time. And, carried away
+by the heat of self-justification, I even ventured to add, that the
+desperate attempt now set afoot to force biblical and post-biblical
+mythology into elementary instruction, renders it useful and necessary
+to go on making a considerable outlay in the same direction. Not yet,
+has "the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew" ceased to be the
+"incubus of the philosopher, and the opprobrium of the orthodox;" not
+yet, has "the zeal of the Bibliolater" ceased from troubling; not yet,
+are the weaker sort, even of the instructed, at rest from their
+fruitless toil "to harmonise impossibilities," and "to force the
+generous new wine of science into the old bottles of Judaism."
+
+But I am aware that the head and front of my offending lies not now
+where it formerly lay. Thirty years ago, criticism of "Moses" was held
+by most respectable people to be deadly sin; now it has sunk to the
+rank of a mere peccadillo; at least, if it stops short of the history
+of Abraham. Destroy the foundation of most forms of dogmatic
+Christianity contained in the second chapter of Genesis, if you will;
+the new ecclesiasticism undertakes to underpin the superstructure and
+make it, at any rate to the eye, as firm as ever: but let him be
+anathema who applies exactly the same canons of criticism to the
+opening chapters of "Matthew" or of "Luke." School-children may be
+told that the world was by no means made in six days, and that
+implicit belief in the story of Noah's Ark is permissible only, as a
+matter of business, to their toy-makers; but they are to hold for the
+certainest of truths, to be doubted only at peril of their salvation,
+that their Galilean fellow-child Jesus, nineteen centuries ago, had no
+human father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, we will pass the item of 1860, said "the voice." But why all
+this more recent coil about the Gadarene swine and the like? Do you
+pretend that these poor animals got in your way, years and years after
+the "Mosaic" fences were down, at any rate so far as you are
+concerned?
+
+Got in my way? Why, my good "voice," they were driven in my way. I had
+happened to make a statement, than which, so far as I have ever been
+able to see, nothing can be more modest or inoffensive; to wit, that I
+am convinced of my own utter ignorance about a great number of things,
+respecting which the great majority of my neighbours (not only those
+of adult years, but children repeating their catechisms) affirm
+themselves to possess full information. I ask any candid and impartial
+judge, Is that attacking anybody or anything?
+
+Yet, if I had made the most wanton and arrogant onslaught on the
+honest convictions of other people, I could not have been more hardly
+dealt with. The pentecostal charism, I believe, exhausted itself
+amongst the earliest disciples. Yet any one who has had to attend, as
+I have done, to copious objurgations, strewn with such appellations as
+"infidel" and "coward," must be a hardened sceptic indeed if he doubts
+the existence of a "gift of tongues" in the Churches of our time;
+unless, indeed, it should occur to him that some of these outpourings
+may have taken place after "the third hour of the day." I am far from
+thinking that it is worth while to give much attention to these
+inevitable incidents of all controversies, in which one party has
+acquired the mental peculiarities which are generated by the habit of
+much talking, with immunity from criticism. But as a rule, they are
+the sauce of dishes of misrepresentations and inaccuracies which it
+may be a duty, nay, even an innocent pleasure, to expose. In the
+particular case of which I am thinking, I felt, as Strauss says, "able
+and called upon" to undertake the business: and it is no
+responsibility of mine, if I found the Gospels, with their miraculous
+stories, of which the Gadarene is a typical example, blocking my way,
+as heretofore, the Pentateuch had done.
+
+I was challenged to question the authority for the theory of "the
+spiritual world," and the practical consequences deducible from human
+relations to it, contained in these documents.
+
+In my judgment, the actuality of this spiritual world--the value of
+the evidence for its objective existence and its influence upon the
+course of things--are matters, which lie as much within the province
+of science, as any other question about the existence and powers of
+the varied forms of living and conscious activity.
+
+It really is my strong conviction that a man has no more right to say
+he believes this world is haunted by swarms of evil spirits, without
+being able to produce satisfactory evidence of the fact, than he has a
+right to say, without adducing adequate proof, that the circumpolar
+antarctic ice swarms with sea-serpents. I should not like to assert
+positively that it does not. I imagine that no cautious biologist
+would say as much; but while quite open to conviction, he might
+properly decline to waste time upon the consideration of talk, no
+better accredited than forecastle "yarns," about such monsters of the
+deep. And if the interests of ordinary veracity dictate this course,
+in relation to a matter of so little consequence as this, what must be
+our obligations in respect of the treatment of a question which is
+fundamental alike for science and for ethics? For not only does our
+general theory of the universe and of the nature of the order which
+pervades it, hang upon the answer; but the rules of practical life
+must be deeply affected by it.
+
+The belief in a demonic world is inculcated throughout the Gospels and
+the rest of the books of the New Testament; it pervades the whole
+patristic literature; it colours the theory and the practice of every
+Christian church down to modern times. Indeed, I doubt if, even now,
+there is any church which, officially, departs from such a fundamental
+doctrine of primitive Christianity as the existence, in addition to
+the Cosmos with which natural knowledge is conversant, of a world of
+spirits; that is to say, of intelligent agents, not subject to the
+physical or mental limitations of humanity, but nevertheless competent
+to interfere, to an undefined extent, with the ordinary course of both
+physical and mental phenomena.
+
+More especially is this conception fundamental for the authors of the
+Gospels. Without the belief that the present world, and particularly
+that part of it which is constituted by human society, has been given
+over, since the Fall, to the influence of wicked and malignant
+spiritual beings, governed and directed by a supreme devil--the moral
+antithesis and enemy of the supreme God--their theory of salvation by
+the Messiah falls to pieces. "To this end was the Son of God
+manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."[3]
+
+The half-hearted religiosity of latter-day Christianity may choose to
+ignore the fact; but it remains none the less true, that he who
+refuses to accept the demonology of the Gospels rejects the revelation
+of a spiritual world, made in them, as much as if he denied the
+existence of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth; and deserves, as much
+as any one can do, to be ear-marked "infidel" by our gentle shepherds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now that which I thought it desirable to make perfectly clear, on my
+own account, and for the sake of those who find their capacity of
+belief in the Gospel theory of the universe failing them, is the fact,
+that, in my judgment, the demonology of primitive Christianity is
+totally devoid of foundation; and that no man, who is guided by the
+rules of investigation which are found to lead to the discovery of
+truth in other matters, not merely of science, but in the everyday
+affairs of life, will arrive at any other conclusion. To those who
+profess to be otherwise guided, I have nothing to say; but to beg them
+to go their own way and leave me to mine.
+
+I think it may be as well to repeat what I have said, over and over
+again, elsewhere, that _a priori_ notions, about the possibility, or
+the impossibility, of the existence of a world of spirits, such as
+that presupposed by genuine Christianity, have no influence on my
+mind. The question for me is purely one of evidence: is the evidence
+adequate to bear out the theory, or is it not? In my judgment it is
+not only inadequate, but quite absurdly insufficient. And on that
+ground, I should feel compelled to reject the theory; even if there
+were no positive grounds for adopting a totally different conception
+of the Cosmos.
+
+For most people, the question of the evidence of the existence of a
+demonic world, in the long run, resolves itself into that of the
+trustworthiness of the Gospels; first, as to the objective truth of
+that which they narrate on this topic; second, as to the accuracy of
+the interpretation which their authors put upon these objective facts.
+For example, with respect to the Gadarene miracle, it is one question
+whether, at a certain time and place, a raving madman became sane, and
+a herd of swine rushed into the lake of Tiberias; and quite another,
+whether the cause of these occurrences was the transmigration of
+certain devils from the man into the pigs. And again, it is one
+question whether Jesus made a long oration on a certain occasion,
+mentioned in the first Gospel; altogether another, whether more or
+fewer of the propositions contained in the "Sermon on the Mount" were
+uttered on that occasion. One may give an affirmative answer to one of
+each of these pairs of questions and a negative to the other: one may
+affirm all, or deny all.
+
+In considering the historical value of any four documents, proof when
+they were written and who wrote them is, no doubt, highly important.
+For if proof exists, that A B C and D wrote them, and that they were
+intelligent persons, writing independently and without prejudice,
+about facts within their own knowledge--their statements must needs be
+worthy of the most attentive consideration.[4] But, even
+ecclesiastical tradition does not assert that either "Mark" or "Luke"
+wrote from his own knowledge--indeed "Luke" expressly asserts he did
+not. I cannot discover that any competent authority now maintains that
+the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel which passes under his name. And
+whether the apostle John had, or had not, anything to do with the
+fourth Gospel; and if he had, what his share amounted to; are, as
+everybody who has attended to these matters knows, questions still
+hotly disputed, and with regard to which the extant evidence can
+hardly carry an impartial judge beyond the admission of a possibility
+this way or that.
+
+Thus, nothing but a balancing of very dubious probabilities is to be
+attained by approaching the question from this side. It is otherwise
+if we make the documents tell their own story: if we study them, as we
+study fossils, to discover internal evidence, of when they arose, and
+how they have come to be. That really fruitful line of inquiry has led
+to the statement and the discussion of what is known as the _Synoptic
+Problem_.
+
+In the Essays (VII.--XI.) which deal with the consequences of the
+application of the agnostic principle to Christian Evidences,
+contained in this volume, there are several references to the results
+of the attempts which have been made, during the last hundred years,
+to solve this problem. And, though it has been clearly stated and
+discussed, in works accessible to, and intelligible by, every English
+reader,[5] it may be well that I should here set forth a very brief
+exposition of the matters of fact out of which the problem has arisen;
+and of some consequences, which, as I conceive, must be admitted if
+the facts are accepted.
+
+These undisputed and, apparently, indisputable data may be thus
+stated:
+
+I. The three books of which an ancient, but very questionable,
+ecclesiastical tradition asserts Matthew, Mark, and Luke to be the
+authors, agree, not only in presenting the same general view, or
+_Synopsis_, of the nature and the order of the events narrated; but,
+to a remarkable extent, the very words which they employ coincide.
+
+II. Nevertheless, there are many equally marked, and some
+irreconcilable, differences between them. Narratives, verbally
+identical in some portions, diverge more or less in others. The order
+in which they occur in one, or in two, Gospels may be changed in
+another. In "Matthew" and in "Luke" events of great importance make
+their appearance, where the story of "Mark" seems to leave no place
+for them; and, at the beginning and the end of the two former Gospels,
+there is a great amount of matter of which there is no trace in
+"Mark."
+
+III. Obvious and highly important differences, in style and substance,
+separate the three "Synoptics," taken together, from the fourth
+Gospel, connected, by ecclesiastical tradition, with the name of the
+apostle John. In its philosophical proemium; in the conspicuous
+absence of exorcistic miracles; in the self-assertive theosophy of the
+long and diffuse monologues, which are so utterly unlike the brief
+and pregnant utterances of Jesus recorded in the Synoptics; in the
+assertion that the crucifixion took place before the Passover, which
+involves the denial, by implication, of the truth of the Synoptic
+story--to mention only a few particulars--the "Johannine" Gospel
+presents a wide divergence from the other three.
+
+IV. If the mutual resemblances and differences of the Synoptic Gospels
+are closely considered, a curious result comes out; namely, that each
+may be analyzed into four components. The _first_ of these consists of
+passages, to a greater or less extent verbally identical, which occur
+in all three Gospels. If this triple tradition is separated from the
+rest it will be found to comprise:
+
+_a_. A narrative, of a somewhat broken and anecdotic aspect, which
+covers the period from the appearance of John the Baptist to the
+discovery of the emptiness of the tomb, on the first day of the week,
+some six-and-thirty hours after the crucifixion.
+
+_b_. An apocalyptic address.
+
+_c_. Parables and brief discourses, or rather, centos of religious and
+ethical exhortations and injunctions.
+
+The _second_ and the _third_ set of components of each Gospel present
+equally close resemblances to passages, which are found in only one of
+the other Gospels; therefore it may be said that, for them, the
+tradition is double. The _fourth_ component is peculiar to each
+Gospel; it is a single tradition and has no representative in the
+others.
+
+To put the facts in another way: each Gospel is composed of a
+_threefold tradition_, two _twofold traditions_, and one _peculiar
+tradition_. If the Gospels were the work of totally independent
+writers, it would follow that there are three witnesses for the
+statements in the first tradition; two for each of those in the
+second, and only one for those in the third.
+
+V. If the reader will now take up that extremely instructive little
+book, Abbott and Rushbrooke's "Common Tradition" he will easily
+satisfy himself that "Mark" has the remarkable structure just
+described. Almost the whole of this Gospel consists of the first
+component; namely, the _threefold tradition_. But in chap. i. 23-28 he
+will discover an exorcistic story, not to be found in "Matthew," but
+repeated, often word for word, in "Luke." This, therefore, belongs to
+one of the _twofold traditions_. In chap. viii. 1-10, on the other
+hand, there is a detailed account of the miracle of feeding the four
+thousand; which is closely repeated in "Matthew" xv. 32-39, but is not
+to be found in "Luke." This is an example of the other _twofold
+tradition_, possible in "Mark." Finally, the story of the blind man of
+Bethsaida, "Mark" viii. 22-26, is _peculiar_ to "Mark."
+
+VI. Suppose that, A standing for the _threefold tradition_, or the
+matter common to all three Gospels; we call the matter common to
+"Mark" and "Matthew" only--B; that common to "Mark" and "Luke"
+only--C; that common to "Matthew" and "Luke" only--D; while the
+peculiar components of "Mark," "Matthew," and "Luke" are severally
+indicated by E, F, G; then the structure of the Gospels may be
+represented thus:
+
+  Components of "Mark" = A + B + C + E.
+     "       "Matthew" = A + B + D + F.
+     "          "Luke" = A + C + D + G.
+
+VII. The analysis of the Synoptic documents need be carried no further
+than this point, in order to suggest one extremely important, and,
+apparently unavoidable conclusion; and that is, that their authors
+were neither three independent witnesses of the things narrated; nor,
+for the parts of the narrative about which all agree, that is to say,
+the _threefold tradition_, did they employ independent sources of
+information. It is simply incredible that each of three independent
+witnesses of any series of occurrences should tell a story so similar,
+not only in arrangement and in small details, but in words, to that of
+each of the others.
+
+Hence it follows, either that the Synoptic writers have, mediately or
+immediately, copied one from the other: or that the three have drawn
+from a common source; that is to say, from one arrangement of similar
+traditions (whether oral or written); though that arrangement may have
+been extant in three or more, somewhat different versions.
+
+VIII. The suppositions (_a_) that "Mark" had "Matthew" and "Luke"
+before him; and (_b_) that either of the two latter was acquainted
+with the work of the other, would seem to involve some singular
+consequences.
+
+_a_. The second Gospel is saturated with the lowest supernaturalism.
+Jesus is exhibited as a wonder-worker and exorcist of the first rank.
+The earliest public recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus comes from
+an "unclean spirit"; he himself is made to testify to the occurrence
+of the miraculous feeding twice over.
+
+The purpose with which "Mark" sets out is to show forth Jesus as the
+Son of God, and it is suggested, if not distinctly stated, that he
+acquired this character at his baptism by John. The absence of any
+reference to the miraculous events of the infancy, detailed by
+"Matthew" and "Luke;" or to the appearances after the discovery of the
+emptiness of the tomb; is unintelligible, if "Mark" knew anything
+about them, or believed in the miraculous conception. The second
+Gospel is no summary: "Mark" can find room for the detailed story,
+irrelevant to his main purpose, of the beheading of John the Baptist,
+and his miraculous narrations are crowded with minute particulars. Is
+it to be imagined that, with the supposed apostolic authority of
+Matthew before him, he could leave out the miraculous conception of
+Jesus and the ascension? Further, ecclesiastical tradition would have
+us believe that Mark wrote down his recollections of what Peter
+taught. Did Peter then omit to mention these matters? Did the fact
+testified by the oldest authority extant, that the first appearance of
+the risen Jesus was to himself seem not worth mentioning? Did he
+really fail to speak of the great position in the Church solemnly
+assigned to him by Jesus? The alternative would seem to be the
+impeachment either of Mark's memory, or of his judgment. But Mark's
+memory, is so good that he can recollect how, on the occasion of the
+stilling of the waves, Jesus was asleep "on the cushion," he remembers
+that the woman with the issue had "spent all she had" on her
+physicians; that there was not room "even about the door" on a certain
+occasion at Capernaum. And it is surely hard to believe that "Mark"
+should have failed to recollect occurrences of infinitely greater
+moment, or that he should have deliberately left them out, as things
+not worthy of mention.
+
+_b_. The supposition that "Matthew" was acquainted with "Luke," or
+"Luke" with "Matthew" has equally grave implications. If that be so,
+the one who used the other could have had but a poor opinion of his
+predecessor's historical veracity. If, as most experts agree, "Luke"
+is later than "Matthew," it is clear that he does not credit
+"Matthew's" account of the infancy; does not believe the "Sermon on
+the Mount" as given by Matthew was preached; does not believe in the
+two feeding miracles, to which Jesus himself is made to refer; wholly
+discredits "Matthew's" account of the events after the crucifixion;
+and thinks it not worth while to notice "Matthew's" grave admission
+that "some doubted."
+
+IX. None of these troublesome consequences pursue the hypothesis that
+the _threefold tradition_, in one, or more, Greek versions, was extant
+before either of the canonical Synoptic Gospels; and that it furnished
+the fundamental framework of their several narratives. Where and when
+the threefold narrative arose, there is no positive evidence; though
+it is obviously probable that the traditions it embodies, and perhaps
+many others, took their rise in Palestine and spread thence to Asia
+Minor, Greece, Egypt and Italy, in the track of the early
+missionaries. Nor is it less likely that they formed part of the
+"didaskalia" of the primitive Nazarene and Christian communities.[6]
+
+X. The interest which attaches to "Mark" arises from the fact that it
+seems to present this early, probably earliest, Greek Gospel
+narrative, with least addition, or modification. If, as appears likely
+from some internal evidences, it was compiled for the use of the
+Christian sodalities in Rome; and that it was accepted by them as an
+adequate account of the life and work of Jesus, it is evidence of the
+most valuable kind respecting their beliefs and the limits of dogma,
+as conceived by them.
+
+In such case, a good Roman Christian of that epoch might know nothing
+of the doctrine of the incarnation, as taught by "Matthew" and "Luke";
+still less of the "logos" doctrine of "John"; neither need he have
+believed anything more than the simple fact of the resurrection. It
+was open to him to believe it either corporeal or spiritual. He would
+never have heard of the power of the keys bestowed upon Peter; nor
+have had brought to his mind so much as a suggestion of trinitarian
+doctrine. He might be a rigidly monotheistic Jud�o-Christian, and
+consider himself bound by the law: he might be a Gentile Pauline
+convert, neither knowing of nor caring for such restrictions. In
+neither case would he find in "Mark" any serious stumbling-block. In
+fact, persons of all the categories admitted to salvation by Justin,
+in the middle of the second century,[7] could accept "Mark" from
+beginning to end. It may well be, that, in this wide adaptability,
+backed by the authority of the metropolitan church, there lies the
+reason for the fact of the preservation of "Mark," notwithstanding its
+limited and dogmatically colourless character, as compared with the
+Gospels of "Luke" and "Matthew."
+
+XI. "Mark," as we have seen, contains a relatively small body of
+ethical and religious instruction and only a few parables. Were these
+all that existed in the primitive threefold tradition? Were none
+others current in the Roman communities, at the time "Mark" wrote,
+supposing he wrote in Rome? Or, on the other hand, was there extant,
+as early as the time at which "Mark" composed his Greek edition of the
+primitive Evangel, one or more collections of parables and teachings,
+such as those which form the bulk of the twofold tradition, common
+exclusively to "Matthew" and "Luke," and are also found in their
+single traditions? Many have assumed this, or these, collections to be
+identical with, or at any rate based upon, the "logia," of which
+ecclesiastical tradition says, that they were written in Aramaic by
+Matthew, and that everybody translated them as he could.
+
+Here is the old difficulty again. If such materials were known to
+"Mark," what imaginable reason could he have for not using them?
+Surely displacement of the long episode of John the Baptist--even
+perhaps of the story of the Gadarene swine--by portions of the Sermon
+on the Mount or by one or two of the beautiful parables in the twofold
+and single traditions would have been great improvements; and might
+have been effected, even though "Mark" was as much pressed for space
+as some have imagined. But there is no ground for that imagination;
+Mark has actually found room for four or five parables; why should he
+not have given the best, if he had known of them? Admitting he was the
+mere _pedissequus et breviator_ of Matthew, that even Augustine
+supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the Lord's Prayer?
+
+Whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition D, and
+of the peculiar traditions F and G, were or were not current in some
+of the communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple
+tradition, it is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider
+those solutions of the Synoptic problem which assume that it existed
+earlier, and was already combined with more or less narrative. Those
+who are working out the final solution of the Synoptic problem are
+taking into account, more than hitherto, the possibility that the
+widely separated Christian communities of Palestine, Asia Minor,
+Egypt, and Italy, especially after the Jewish war of A.D. 66-70, may
+have found themselves in possession of very different traditional
+materials. Many circumstances tend to the conclusion that, in Asia
+Minor, even the narrative part of the threefold tradition had a
+formidable rival; and that, around this second narrative, teaching
+traditions of a totally different order from those in the Synoptics,
+grouped themselves; and, under the influence of converts imbued more
+or less with the philosophical speculations of the time, eventually
+took shape in the fourth Gospel and its associated literature.
+
+XII. But it is unnecessary, and it would be out of place, for me to
+attempt to do more than indicate the existence of these complex and
+difficult questions. My purpose has been to make it clear that the
+Synoptic problem must force itself upon every one who studies the
+Gospels with attention; that the broad facts of the case, and some of
+the consequences deducible from these facts, are just as plain to the
+simple English reader as they are to the profoundest scholar.
+
+One of these consequences is that the threefold tradition presents us
+with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its
+particulars, by the major part, if not the whole, of the Christian
+communities. That narrative is penetrated, from beginning to end, by
+the demonological beliefs of which the Gadarene story is a specimen;
+and, if the fourth Gospel indicates the existence of another and, in
+some respects, irreconcilably divergent narrative, in which the
+demonology retires into the background, it is none the less there.
+
+Therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of
+primitive Christianity. The farther back the origin of the gospels is
+dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and
+the more difficult it becomes to suppose that Jesus himself may not
+have shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples.
+
+It further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and
+exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual
+world may consistently consider the testimony of the Gospels to be
+unimpeachable in respect of the information they give us respecting
+other matters which appertain to that world.
+
+Those who reject the gospel demonology, on the other hand, would seem
+to be as completely barred, as I feel myself to be, from professing to
+take the accuracy of that information for granted. If the threefold
+tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about
+another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually
+contradictory as they are, becomes a vanishing quantity.
+
+It really is unreasonable to ask any rejector of the demonology to say
+more with respect to those other matters, than that the statements
+regarding them may be true, or may be false; and that the ultimate
+decision, if it is to be favourable, must depend on the production of
+testimony of a very different character from that of the writers of
+the four gospels. Until such evidence is brought forward, that
+refusal of assent, with willingness to re-open the question, on cause
+shown, which is what I mean by Agnosticism, is, for me, the only
+course open.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A verdict of "not proven" is undoubtedly unsatisfactory and
+essentially provisional, so far forth as the subject of the trial is
+capable of being dealt with by due process of reason.
+
+Those who are of opinion that the historical realities at the root of
+Christianity, lie beyond the jurisdiction of science, need not be
+considered. Those who are convinced that the evidence is, and must
+always remain, insufficient to support any definite conclusion, are
+justified in ignoring the subject. They must be content to put up with
+that reproach of being mere destroyers, of which Strauss speaks. They
+may say that there are so many problems which are and must remain
+insoluble, that the "burden of the mystery" "of all this
+unintelligible world" is not appreciably affected by one more or less.
+
+For myself, I must confess that the problem of the origin of such very
+remarkable historical phenomena as the doctrines, and the social
+organization, which in their broad features certainly existed, and
+were in a state of rapid development, within a hundred years of the
+crucifixion of Jesus; and which have steadily prevailed against all
+rivals, among the most intelligent and civilized nations in the world
+ever since, is, and always has been, profoundly interesting; and,
+considering how recent the really scientific study of that problem,
+and how great the progress made during the last half century in
+supplying the conditions for a positive solution of the problem, I
+cannot doubt that the attainment of such a solution is a mere question
+of time.
+
+I am well aware that it has lain far beyond my powers to take any
+share in this great undertaking. All that I can hope is to have done
+somewhat towards "the preparation of those who have ceased to be
+contented with the old and find no satisfaction in half measures":
+perhaps, also, something towards the lessening of that great
+proportion of my countrymen, whose eminent characteristic it is that
+they find "full satisfaction in half measures."
+
+T.H.H.
+HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE,
+_December 4th, 1893_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+      [1] D.F. Strauss, _Der alte und der neue Glaube_
+          (1872), pp. 9, 10.
+
+      [2] _Collected Essays_, vol. ii., "On the Origin of
+          Species" (1860).
+
+      [3] 1 John iii. 8.
+
+      [4] Not necessarily of more than this. A few centuries
+          ago the twelve most intelligent and impartial men to be
+          found in England, would have independently testified
+          that the sun moves, from east to west, across the
+          heavens every day.
+
+      [5] Nowhere more concisely and clearly than in Dr.
+          Sutherland Black's article "Gospels" in Chambers's
+          _Encyclop�dia_. References are given to the more
+          elaborate discussions of the problem.
+
+      [6] Those who regard the Apocalyptic discourse as a
+          "vaticination after the event" may draw conclusions
+          therefrom as to the date of the Gospels in which its
+          several forms occur. But the assumption is surely
+          dangerous, from an apologetic point of view, since it
+          begs the question as to the unhistorical character of
+          this solemn prophecy.
+
+      [7] See p. 287 of this volume.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                      PAGE
+   I. PROLOGUE                                           1
+      (_Controverted Questions_, 1892).
+
+  II. SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM [1887]   59
+
+ III. SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE [1887]                 90
+
+  IV. AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY [1887]                      126
+
+   V. THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS [1889]    160
+
+  VI. POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES [1891]         192
+
+ VII. AGNOSTICISM [1889]                               209
+
+VIII. AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER [1889]                  263
+
+  IX. AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY [1889]              309
+
+   X. THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE [1890]          366
+
+  XI. ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL
+      METHODS [1891]                                   393
+
+
+
+
+I: PROLOGUE
+
+[_Controverted Questions_, 1892]
+
+Le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre � la science est d'y faire
+place nette avant d'y rien construire.--CUVIER.
+
+
+Most of the Essays comprised in the present volume have been written
+during the last six or seven years, without premeditated purpose or
+intentional connection, in reply to attacks upon doctrines which I
+hold to be well founded; or in refutation of allegations respecting
+matters lying within the province of natural knowledge, which I
+believe to be erroneous; and they bear the mark of their origin in the
+controversial tone which pervades them.
+
+Of polemical writing, as of other kinds of warfare, I think it may be
+said, that it is often useful, sometimes necessary, and always more or
+less of an evil. It is useful, when it attracts attention to topics
+which might otherwise be neglected; and when, as does sometimes
+happen, those who come to see a contest remain to think. It is
+necessary, when the interests of truth and of justice are at stake.
+It is an evil, in so far as controversy always tends to degenerate
+into quarrelling, to swerve from the great issue of what is right and
+what is wrong to the very small question of who is right and who is
+wrong. I venture to hope that the useful and the necessary were more
+conspicuous than the evil attributes of literary militancy, when these
+papers were first published; but I have had some hesitation about
+reprinting them. If I may judge by my own taste, few literary dishes
+are less appetising than cold controversy; moreover, there is an air
+of unfairness about the presentation of only one side of a discussion,
+and a flavour of unkindness in the reproduction of "winged words,"
+which, however appropriate at the time of their utterance, would find
+a still more appropriate place in oblivion. Yet, since I could hardly
+ask those who have honoured me by their polemical attentions to confer
+lustre on this collection, by permitting me to present their
+lucubrations along with my own; and since it would be a manifest wrong
+to them to deprive their, by no means rare, vivacities of language of
+such justification as they may derive from similar freedoms on my
+part; I came to the conclusion that my best course was to leave the
+essays just as they were written;[8] assuring my honourable
+adversaries that any heat of which signs may remain was generated, in
+accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, by the force of
+their own blows, and has long since been dissipated into space.
+
+But, however the polemical coincomitants of these discussions may be
+regarded--or better, disregarded--there is no doubt either about the
+importance of the topics of which they treat, or as to the public
+interest in the "Controverted Questions" with which they deal. Or
+rather, the Controverted Question; for disconnected as these pieces
+may, perhaps, appear to be, they are, in fact, concerned only with
+different aspects of a single problem, with which thinking men have
+been occupied, ever since they began seriously to consider the
+wonderful frame of things in which their lives are set, and to seek
+for trustworthy guidance among its intricacies.
+
+Experience speedily taught them that the shifting scenes of the
+world's stage have a permanent background; that there is order amidst
+the seeming confusion, and that many events take place according to
+unchanging rules. To this region of familiar steadiness and customary
+regularity they gave the name of Nature. But, at the same time, their
+infantile and untutored reason, little more, as yet, than the
+playfellow of the imagination, led them to believe that this tangible,
+commonplace, orderly world of Nature was surrounded and
+interpenetrated by another intangible and mysterious world, no more
+bound by fixed rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and
+passions which coursed through their minds and seemed to exercise an
+intermittent and capricious rule over their bodies. They attributed to
+the entities, with which they peopled this dim and dreadful region, an
+unlimited amount of that power of modifying the course of events of
+which they themselves possessed a small share, and thus came to regard
+them as not merely beyond, but above, Nature.
+
+Hence arose the conception of a "Supernature" antithetic to
+"Nature"--the primitive dualism of a natural world "fixed in fate" and
+a supernatural, left to the free play of volition--which has pervaded
+all later speculation and, for thousands of years, has exercised a
+profound influence on practice. For it is obvious that, on this theory
+of the Universe, the successful conduct of life must demand careful
+attention to both worlds; and, if either is to be neglected, it may be
+safer that it should be Nature. In any given contingency, it must
+doubtless be desirable to know what may be expected to happen in the
+ordinary course of things; but it must be quite as necessary to have
+some inkling of the line likely to be taken by supernatural agencies
+able, and possibly willing, to suspend or reverse that course. Indeed,
+logically developed, the dualistic theory must needs end in almost
+exclusive attention to Supernature, and in trust that its overruling
+strength will be exerted in favour of those who stand well with its
+denizens. On the other hand, the lessons of the great schoolmaster,
+experience, have hardly seemed to accord with this conclusion. They
+have taught, with considerable emphasis, that it does not answer to
+neglect Nature; and that, on the whole, the more attention paid to her
+dictates the better men fare.
+
+Thus the theoretical antithesis brought about a practical antagonism.
+From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, Naturalism and
+Supernaturalism have consciously, or unconsciously, competed and
+struggled with one another; and the varying fortunes of the contest
+are written in the records of the course of civilisation, from those
+of Egypt and Babylonia, six thousand years ago, down to those of our
+own time and people.
+
+These records inform us that, so far as men have paid attention to
+Nature, they have been rewarded for their pains. They have developed
+the Arts which have furnished the conditions of civilised existence;
+and the Sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality
+and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of
+discovering truth. They have accumulated a vast body of universally
+accepted knowledge; and the conceptions of man and of society, of
+morals and of law, based upon that knowledge, are every day more and
+more, either openly or tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of
+right action.
+
+History also tells us that the field of the supernatural has rewarded
+its cultivators with a harvest, perhaps not less luxuriant, but of a
+different character. It has produced an almost infinite diversity of
+Religions. These, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which
+natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about
+Supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of
+their relations with Nature, and of the operations by which their
+interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or
+averted. It does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have
+attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history
+indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice,
+with the onward flow of time. On the contrary, the various religions
+are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents
+delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with
+criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity. In
+singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of
+mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more
+exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon conduct the
+greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of
+civilisation submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there
+would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural
+knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in
+trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and
+questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of
+action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or
+vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition.
+
+Whether this difference of the fortunes of Naturalism and of
+Supernaturalism is an indication of the progress, or of the regress,
+of humanity; of a fall from, or an advance towards, the higher life;
+is a matter of opinion. The point to which I wish to direct attention
+is that the difference exists and is making itself felt. Men are
+growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the historical
+evolution of humanity, which is generally, and I venture to think not
+unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being,
+accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its
+originally large occupation of men's thoughts. The question--How far
+is this process to go?--is, in my apprehension, the Controverted
+Question of our time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Controversy on this matter--prolonged, bitter, and fought out with the
+weapons of the flesh, as well as with those of the spirit--is no new
+thing to Englishmen. We have been more or less occupied with it these
+five hundred years. And, during that time, we have made attempts to
+establish a _modus vivendi_ between the antagonists, some of which
+have had a world-wide influence; though, unfortunately, none have
+proved universally and permanently satisfactory.
+
+In the fourteenth century, the controverted question among us was,
+whether certain portions of the Supernaturalism of medi�val
+Christianity were well-founded. John Wicliff proposed a solution of
+the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years,
+acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards,
+Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and
+Anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal
+to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits
+sanctioned by the Scriptures. None of the chiefs of Protestantism
+called in question either the supernatural origin and infallible
+authority of the Bible, or the exactitude of the account of the
+supernatural world given in its pages. In fact, they could not afford
+to entertain any doubt about these points, since the infallible Bible
+was the fulcrum of the lever with which they were endeavouring to
+upset the Chair of St. Peter. The "freedom of private judgment" which
+they proclaimed, meant no more, in practice, than permission to
+themselves to make free with the public judgment of the Roman Church,
+in respect of the canon and of the meaning to be attached to the words
+of the canonical books. Private judgment--that is to say, reason--was
+(theoretically, at any rate) at liberty to decide what books were and
+what were not to take the rank of "Scripture"; and to determine the
+sense of any passage in such books. But this sense, once ascertained
+to the mind of the sectary, was to be taken for pure truth--for the
+very word of God. The controversial efficiency of the principle of
+biblical infallibility lay in the fact that the conservative
+adversaries of the Reformers were not in a position to contravene it
+without entangling themselves in serious difficulties; while, since
+both Papists and Protestants agreed in taking efficient measures to
+stop the mouths of any more radical critics, these did not count.
+
+The impotence of their adversaries, however, did not remove the
+inherent weakness of the position of the Protestants. The dogma of the
+infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the
+infallibility of the Pope. If the former is held by "faith," then the
+latter may be. If the latter is to be accepted, or rejected, by
+private judgment, why not the former? Even if the Bible could be
+proved anywhere to assert its own infallibility, the value of that
+self-assertion to those who dispute the point is not obvious. On the
+other hand, if the infallibility of the Bible was rested on that of a
+"primitive Church," the admission that the "Church" was formerly
+infallible was awkward in the extreme for those who denied its present
+infallibility. Moreover, no sooner was the Protestant principle
+applied to practice, than it became evident that even an infallible
+text, when manipulated by private judgment, will impartially
+countenance contradictory deductions; and furnish forth creeds and
+confessions as diverse as the quality and the information of the
+intellects which exercise, and the prejudices and passions which sway,
+such judgments. Every sect, confident in the derivative infallibility
+of its wire-drawing of infallible materials, was ready to supply its
+contingent of martyrs; and to enable history, once more, to illustrate
+the truth, that steadfastness under persecution says much for the
+sincerity and still more for the tenacity, of the believer, but very
+little for the objective truth of that which he believes. No martyrs
+have sealed their faith with their blood more steadfastly than the
+Anabaptists.
+
+Last, but not least, the Protestant principle contained within itself
+the germs of the destruction of the finality, which the Lutheran,
+Calvinistic, and other Protestant Churches fondly imagined they had
+reached. Since their creeds were professedly based on the canonical
+Scriptures, it followed that, in the long run, whoso settled the
+canon defined the creed. If the private judgment of Luther might
+legitimately conclude that the epistle of James was contemptible,
+while the epistles of Paul contained the very essence of Christianity,
+it must be permissible for some other private judgment, on as good or
+as bad grounds, to reverse these conclusions; the critical process
+which excluded the Apocrypha could not be barred, at any rate by
+people who rejected the authority of the Church, from extending its
+operations to Daniel, the Canticles, and Ecclesiastes; nor, having got
+so far, was it easy to allege any good ground for staying the further
+progress of criticism. In fact, the logical development of
+Protestantism could not fail to lay the authority of the Scriptures at
+the feet of Reason; and, in the hands of latitudinarian and
+rationalistic theologians, the despotism of the Bible was rapidly
+converted into an extremely limited monarchy. Treated with as much
+respect as ever, the sphere of its practical authority was minimised;
+and its decrees were valid only so far as they were countersigned by
+common sense, the responsible minister.
+
+The champions of Protestantism are much given to glorify the
+Reformation of the sixteenth century as the emancipation of Reason;
+but it may be doubted if their contention has any solid ground; while
+there is a good deal of evidence to show, that aspirations after
+intellectual freedom had nothing whatever to do with the movement.
+Dante, who struck the Papacy as hard blows as Wicliff; Wicliff himself
+and Luther himself, when they began their work; were far enough from
+any intention of meddling with even the most irrational of the dogmas
+of medi�val Supernaturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to
+M�nzer, Rothmann, and John of Leyden, I fail to find a trace of any
+desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a
+proposal to change masters. From being the slave of the Papacy the
+intellect was to become the serf of the Bible; or, to speak more
+accurately, of somebody's interpretation of the Bible, which, rapidly
+shifting its attitude from the humility of a private judgment to the
+arrogant C�saro-papistry of a state-enforced creed, had no more
+hesitation about forcibly extinguishing opponent private judgments and
+judges, than had the old-fashioned Pontiff-papistry.
+
+It was the iniquities, and not the irrationalities, of the Papal
+system that lay at the bottom of the revolt of the laity; which was,
+essentially, an attempt to shake off the intolerable burden of certain
+practical deductions from a Supernaturalism in which everybody, in
+principle, acquiesced. What was the gain to intellectual freedom of
+abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, indulgences,
+ecclesiastical infallibility; if consubstantiation, real-unreal
+presence mystifications, the bibliolatry, the "inner-light"
+pretensions, and the demonology, which are fruits of the same
+supernaturalistic tree, remained in enjoyment of the spiritual and
+temporal support of a new infallibility? One does not free a prisoner
+by merely scraping away the rust from his shackles.
+
+It will be asked, perhaps, was not the Reformation one of the products
+of that great outbreak of many-sided free mental activity included
+under the general head of the Renascence? Melanchthon, Ulrich von
+Hutten, Beza, were they not all humanists? Was not the arch-humanist,
+Erasmus, fautor-in-chief of the Reformation, until he got frightened
+and basely deserted it?
+
+From the language of Protestant historians, it would seem that they
+often forget that Reformation and Protestantism are by no means
+convertible terms. There were plenty of sincere and indeed zealous
+reformers, before, during, and after the birth and growth of
+Protestantism, who would have nothing to do with it. Assuredly, the
+rejuvenescence of science and of art; the widening of the field of
+Nature by geographical and astronomical discovery; the revelation of
+the noble ideals of antique literature by the revival of classical
+learning; the stir of thought, throughout all classes of society, by
+the printers' work, loosened traditional bonds and weakened the hold
+of medi�val Supernaturalism. In the interests of liberal culture and
+of national welfare, the humanists were eager to lend a hand to
+anything which tended to the discomfiture of their sworn enemies, the
+monks, and they willingly supported every movement in the direction of
+weakening ecclesiastical interference with civil life. But the bond of
+a common enemy was the only real tie between the humanist and the
+protestant; their alliance was bound to be of short duration, and,
+sooner or later, to be replaced by internecine warfare. The goal of
+the humanists, whether they were aware of it or not, was the
+attainment of the complete intellectual freedom of the antique
+philosopher, than which nothing could be more abhorrent to a Luther, a
+Calvin, a Beza, or a Zwingli.
+
+The key to the comprehension of the conduct of Erasmus, seems to me to
+lie in the clear apprehension of this fact. That he was a man of many
+weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and
+professed himself no hero. But he never deserted that reformatory
+movement which he originally contemplated; and it was impossible he
+should have deserted the specifically Protestant reformation in which
+he never took part. He was essentially a theological whig, to whom
+radicalism was as hateful as it is to all whigs; or, to borrow a still
+more appropriate comparison from modern times, a broad churchman who
+refused to enlist with either the High Church or the Low Church
+zealots, and paid the penalty of being called coward, time-server and
+traitor, by both. Yet really there is a good deal in his pathetic
+remonstrance that he does not see why he is bound to become a martyr
+for that in which he does not believe; and a fair consideration of the
+circumstances and the consequences of the Protestant reformation seems
+to me to go a long way towards justifying the course he adopted.
+
+Few men had better means of being acquainted with the condition of
+Europe; none could be more competent to gauge the intellectual
+shallowness and self-contradiction of the Protestant criticism of
+Catholic doctrine; and to estimate, at its proper value, the fond
+imagination that the waters let out by the Renascence would come to
+rest amidst the blind alleys of the new ecclesiasticism. The bastard,
+whilom poor student and monk, become the familiar of bishops and
+princes, at home in all grades of society, could not fail to be aware
+of the gravity of the social position, of the dangers imminent from
+the profligacy and indifference of the ruling classes, no less than
+from the anarchical tendencies of the people who groaned under their
+oppression. The wanderer who had lived in Germany, in France, in
+England, in Italy, and who counted many of the best and most
+influential men in each country among his friends, was not likely to
+estimate wrongly the enormous forces which were still at the command
+of the Papacy. Bad as the churchmen might be, the statesmen were
+worse; and a person of far more sanguine temperament than Erasmus
+might have seen no hope for the future, except in gradually freeing
+the ubiquitous organisation of the Church from the corruptions which
+alone, as he imagined, prevented it from being as beneficent as it was
+powerful. The broad tolerance of the scholar and man of the world
+might well be revolted by the ruffianism, however genial, of one great
+light of Protestantism, and the narrow fanaticism, however learned and
+logical, of others; and to a cautious thinker, by whom, whatever his
+shortcomings, the ethical ideal of the Christian evangel was sincerely
+prized, it really was a fair question, whether it was worth while to
+bring about a political and social deluge, the end of which no mortal
+could foresee, for the purpose of setting up Lutheran, Zwinglian, and
+other Peterkins, in the place of the actual claimant to the reversion
+of the spiritual wealth of the Galilean fisherman.
+
+Let us suppose that, at the beginning of the Lutheran and Zwinglian
+movement, a vision of its immediate consequences had been granted to
+Erasmus; imagine that to the spectre of the fierce outbreak of
+Anabaptist communism, which opened the apocalypse, had succeeded, in
+shadowy procession, the reign of terror and of spoliation in England,
+with the judicial murders of his friends, More and Fisher; the bitter
+tyranny of evangelistic clericalism in Geneva and in Scotland; the
+long agony of religious wars, persecutions, and massacres, which
+devastated France and reduced Germany almost to savagery; finishing
+with the spectacle of Lutheranism in its native country sunk into mere
+dead Erastian formalism, before it was a century old; while Jesuitry
+triumphed over Protestantism in three-fourths of Europe, bringing in
+its train a recrudescence of all the corruptions Erasmus and his
+friends sought to abolish; might not he have quite honestly thought
+this a somewhat too heavy price to pay for Protestantism; more
+especially, since no one was in a better position than himself to know
+how little the dogmatic foundation of the new confessions was able to
+bear the light which the inevitable progress of humanistic criticism
+would throw upon them? As the wiser of his contemporaries saw, Erasmus
+was, at heart, neither Protestant nor Papist, but an "Independent
+Christian"; and, as the wiser of his modern biographers have
+discerned, he was the precursor, not of sixteenth century reform, but
+of eighteenth century "enlightenment"; a sort of broad-church
+Voltaire, who held by his "Independent Christianity" as stoutly as
+Voltaire by his Deism.
+
+In fact, the stream of the Renascence, which bore Erasmus along, left
+Protestantism stranded amidst the mudbanks of its articles and creeds:
+while its true course became visible to all men, two centuries later.
+By this time, those in whom the movement of the Renascence was
+incarnate became aware what spirit they were of; and they attacked
+Supernaturalism in its Biblical stronghold, defended by Protestants
+and Romanists with equal zeal. In the eyes of the "Patriarch,"
+Ultramontanism, Jansenism, and Calvinism were merely three persons of
+the one "Inf�me" which it was the object of his life to crush. If he
+hated one more than another, it was probably the last; while
+D'Holbach, and the extreme left of the free-thinking host, were
+disposed to show no more mercy to Deism and Pantheism.
+
+The sceptical insurrection of the eighteenth century made a terrific
+noise and frightened not a few worthy people out of their wits; but
+cool judges might have foreseen, at the outset, that the efforts of
+the later rebels were no more likely than those of the earlier, to
+furnish permanent resting-places for the spirit of scientific inquiry.
+However worthy of admiration may be the acuteness, the common sense,
+the wit, the broad humanity, which abound in the writings of the best
+of the free-thinkers; there is rarely much to be said for their work
+as an example of the adequate treatment of a grave and difficult
+investigation. I do not think any impartial judge will assert that,
+from this point of view, they are much better than their adversaries.
+It must be admitted that they share to the full the fatal weakness of
+_a priori_ philosophising, no less than the moral frivolity common to
+their age; while a singular want of appreciation of history, as the
+record of the moral and social evolution of the human race, permitted
+them to resort to preposterous theories of imposture, in order to
+account for the religious phenomena which are natural products of that
+evolution.
+
+For the most part, the Romanist and Protestant adversaries of the
+free-thinkers met them with arguments no better than their own; and
+with vituperation, so far inferior that it lacked the wit. But one
+great Christian Apologist fairly captured the guns of the
+free-thinking array, and turned their batteries upon themselves.
+Speculative "infidelity" of the eighteenth century type was mortally
+wounded by the _Analogy_; while the progress of the historical and
+psychological sciences brought to light the important part played by
+the mythopoeic faculty; and, by demonstrating the extreme readiness of
+men to impose upon themselves, rendered the calling in of sacerdotal
+cooperation, in most cases, a superfluity.
+
+Again, as in the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries, social and
+political influences came into play. The free-thinking _philosophes_,
+who objected to Rousseau's sentimental religiosity almost as much as
+they did to _L'Inf�me_, were credited with the responsibility for all
+the evil deeds of Rousseau's Jacobin disciples, with about as much
+justification as Wicliff was held responsible for the Peasants'
+revolt, or Luther for the _Bauern-krieg_. In England, though our
+_ancien r�gime_ was not altogether lovely, the social edifice was
+never in such a bad way as in France; it was still capable of being
+repaired; and our forefathers, very wisely, preferred to wait until
+that operation could be safely performed, rather than pull it all down
+about their ears, in order to build a philosophically planned house on
+brand-new speculative foundations. Under these circumstances, it is
+not wonderful that, in this country, practical men preferred the
+gospel of Wesley and Whitfield to that of Jean Jacques; while enough
+of the old leaven of Puritanism remained to ensure the favour and
+support of a large number of religious men to a revival of evangelical
+supernaturalism. Thus, by degrees, the free-thinking, or the
+indifference, prevalent among us in the first half of the eighteenth
+century, was replaced by a strong supernaturalistic reaction, which
+submerged the work of the free-thinkers; and even seemed, for a time,
+to have arrested the naturalistic movement of which that work was an
+imperfect indication. Yet, like Lollardry, four centuries earlier,
+free-thought merely took to running underground, safe, sooner or
+later, to return to the surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My memory, unfortunately, carries me back to the fourth decade of the
+nineteenth century, when the evangelical flood had a little abated and
+the tops of certain mountains were soon to appear, chiefly in the
+neighbourhood of Oxford; but when nevertheless, bibliolatry was
+rampant; when church and chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of
+God, the crude assumptions of the worst informed and, in natural
+sequence, the most presumptuously bigoted, of all theological schools.
+
+In accordance with promises made on my behalf, but certainly without
+my authorisation, I was very early taken to hear "sermons in the
+vulgar tongue." And vulgar enough often was the tongue in which some
+preacher, ignorant alike of literature, of history, of science, and
+even of theology, outside that patronised by his own narrow school,
+poured forth, from the safe entrenchment of the pulpit, invectives
+against those who deviated from his notion of orthodoxy. From dark
+allusions to "sceptics" and "infidels," I became aware of the
+existence of people who trusted in carnal reason; who audaciously
+doubted that the world was made in six natural days, or that the
+deluge was universal; perhaps even went so far as to question the
+literal accuracy of the story of Eve's temptation, or of Balaam's ass;
+and, from the horror of the tones in which they were mentioned, I
+should have been justified in drawing the conclusion that these rash
+men belonged to the criminal classes. At the same time, those who were
+more directly responsible for providing me with the knowledge
+essential to the right guidance of life (and who sincerely desired to
+do so), imagined they were discharging that most sacred duty by
+impressing upon my childish mind the necessity, on pain of reprobation
+in this world and damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict
+and literal sense, every statement contained in the Protestant Bible.
+I was told to believe, and I did believe, that doubt about any of them
+was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. I suppose that,
+out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred, at least, had
+their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the name of the God
+of truth, by like discipline. I am sure that, even a score of years
+later, those who ventured to question the exact historical accuracy of
+any part of the Old Testament and _a fortiori_ of the Gospels, had to
+expect a pitiless shower of verbal missiles, to say nothing of the
+other disagreeable consequences which visit those who, in any way, run
+counter to that chaos of prejudices called public opinion.
+
+My recollections of this time have recently been revived by the
+perusal of a remarkable document,[9] signed by as many as thirty-eight
+out of the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the Established Church. It
+does not appear that the signataries are officially accredited
+spokesmen of the ecclesiastical corporation to which they belong; but
+I feel bound to take their word for it, that they are "stewards of the
+Lord, who have received the Holy Ghost," and, therefore, to accept
+this memorial as evidence that, though the Evangelicism of my early
+days may be deposed from its place of power, though so many of the
+colleagues of the thirty-eight even repudiate the title of
+Protestants, yet the green bay tree of bibliolatry flourishes as it
+did sixty years ago. And, as in those good old times, whoso refuses to
+offer incense to the idol is held to be guilty of "a dishonour to
+God," imperilling his salvation.
+
+It is to the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that they
+discern the real nature of the Controverted Question of the age. They
+are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if Scripture has been
+discovered "not to be worthy of unquestioning belief," faith "in the
+supernatural itself" is, so far, undermined. And I may congratulate
+myself upon such weighty confirmation of an opinion in which I have
+had the fortune to anticipate them. But whether it is more to the
+credit of the courage, than to the intelligence, of the thirty-eight
+that they should go on to proclaim that the canonical scriptures of
+the Old and New Testaments "declare incontrovertibly the actual
+historical truth in all records, both of past events and of the
+delivery of predictions to be thereafter fulfilled," must be left to
+the coming generation to decide.
+
+The interest which attaches to this singular document will, I think,
+be based by most thinking men, not upon what it is, but upon that of
+which it is a sign. It is an open secret, that the memorial is put
+forth as a counterblast to a manifestation of opinion of a contrary
+character, on the part of certain members of the same ecclesiastical
+body, who therefore have, as I suppose, an equal right to declare
+themselves "stewards of the Lord and recipients of the Holy Ghost." In
+fact, the stream of tendency towards Naturalism, the course of which I
+have briefly traced, has, of late years, flowed so strongly, that even
+the Churches have begun, I dare not say to drift, but, at any rate, to
+swing at their moorings. Within the pale of the Anglican
+establishment, I venture to doubt, whether, at this moment, there are
+as many thorough-going defenders of "plenary inspiration" as there
+were timid questioners of that doctrine, half a century ago.
+Commentaries, sanctioned by the highest authority, give up the "actual
+historical truth" of the cosmogonical and diluvial narratives.
+University professors of deservedly high repute accept the critical
+decision that the Hexateuch is a compilation, in which the share of
+Moses, either as author or as editor, is not quite so clearly
+demonstrable as it might be; highly placed Divines tell us that the
+pre-Abrahamic Scripture narratives may be ignored; that the book of
+Daniel may be regarded as a patriotic romance of the second century
+B.C.; that the words of the writer of the fourth Gospel are not always
+to be distinguished from those which he puts into the mouth of Jesus.
+Conservative, but conscientious, revisers decide that whole passages,
+some of dogmatic and some of ethical importance, are interpolations.
+An uneasy sense of the weakness of the dogma of Biblical infallibility
+seems to be at the bottom of a prevailing tendency once more to
+substitute the authority of the "Church" for that of the Bible. In my
+old age, it has happened to me to be taken to task for regarding
+Christianity as a "religion of a book" as gravely as, in my youth, I
+should have been reprehended for doubting that proposition. It is a no
+less interesting symptom that the State Church seems more and more
+anxious to repudiate all complicity with the principles of the
+Protestant Reformation and to call itself "Anglo-Catholic."
+Inspiration, deprived of its old intelligible sense, is watered down
+into a mystification. The Scriptures are, indeed, inspired; but they
+contain a wholly undefined and indefinable "human element"; and this
+unfortunate intruder is converted into a sort of biblical whipping
+boy. Whatsoever scientific investigation, historical or physical,
+proves to be erroneous, the "human element" bears the blame; while the
+divine inspiration of such statements, as by their nature are out of
+reach of proof or disproof, is still asserted with all the vigour
+inspired by conscious safety from attack. Though the proposal to treat
+the Bible "like any other book" which caused so much scandal, forty
+years ago, may not yet be generally accepted, and though Bishop
+Colenso's criticisms may still lie, formally, under ecclesiastical
+ban, yet the Church has not wholly turned a deaf ear to the voice of
+the scientific tempter; and many a coy divine, while "crying I will
+ne'er consent," has consented to the proposals of that scientific
+criticism which the memorialists renounce and denounce.
+
+A humble layman, to whom it would seem the height of presumption to
+assume even the unconsidered dignity of a "steward of science," may
+well find this conflict of apparently equal ecclesiastical authorities
+perplexing--suggestive, indeed, of the wisdom of postponing attention
+to either, until the question of precedence between them is settled.
+And this course will probably appear the more advisable, the more
+closely the fundamental position of the memorialists is examined.
+
+"No opinion of the fact or form of Divine Revelation, founded on
+literary criticism [and I suppose I may add historical, or physical,
+criticism] of the Scriptures themselves, can be admitted to interfere
+with the traditionary testimony of the Church, when that has been once
+ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity."[10]
+
+Grant that it is "the traditionary testimony of the Church" which
+guarantees the canonicity of each and all of the books of the Old and
+New Testaments. Grant also that canonicity means infallibility; yet,
+according to the thirty-eight, this "traditionary testimony" has to be
+"ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity." But "ascertainment
+and verification" are purely intellectual processes, which must be
+conducted according to the strict rules of scientific investigation,
+or be self-convicted of worthlessness. Moreover, before we can set
+about the appeal to "antiquity," the exact sense of that usefully
+vague term must be defined by similar means. "Antiquity" may include
+any number of centuries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is to
+comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a little beyond that of
+Nic�a, or to come to an end in the time of Iren�nus, or in that of
+Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at all,
+only by those critical methods which the signataries treat so
+cavalierly. And yet the decision of these questions is fundamental,
+for as the limits of the canonical scriptures vary, so may the dogmas
+deduced from them require modification. Christianity is one thing, if
+the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the pastoral Epistles,
+and the Apocalypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) infallibly
+true; and another thing, if they are not. As I have already said,
+whoso defines the canon defines the creed.
+
+Now it is quite certain with respect to some of these books, such as
+the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the Eastern and
+the Western Church differed in opinion for centuries; and yet neither
+the one branch nor the other can have considered its judgment
+infallible, since they eventually agreed to a transaction by which
+each gave up its objection to the book patronised by the other.
+Moreover, the "fathers" argue (in a more or less rational manner)
+about the canonicity of this or that book, and are by no means above
+producing evidence, internal and external, in favour of the opinions
+they advocate. In fact, imperfect as their conceptions of scientific
+method may be, they not unfrequently used it to the best of their
+ability. Thus it would appear that though science, like Nature, may be
+driven out with a fork, ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes
+back again. The appeal to "antiquity" is, in fact, an appeal to
+science, first to define what antiquity is; secondly, to determine
+what "antiquity," so defined, says about canonicity; thirdly, to prove
+that canonicity means infallibility. And when science, largely in the
+shape of the abhorred "criticism," has answered this appeal, and has
+shown that "antiquity" used her own methods, however clumsily and
+imperfectly, she naturally turns round upon the appellants, and
+demands that they should show cause why, in these days, science
+should not resume the work the ancients did so imperfectly, and carry
+it out efficiently.
+
+But no such cause can be shown. If "antiquity" permitted Eusebius,
+Origen, Tertullian, Iren�us, to argue for the reception of this book
+into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational grounds,
+"antiquity" admitted the whole principle of modern criticism. If
+Iren�us produces ridiculous reasons for limiting the Gospels to four,
+it was open to any one else to produce good reasons (if he had them)
+for cutting them down to three, or increasing them to five. If the
+Eastern branch of the Church had a right to reject the Apocalypse and
+accept the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Western an equal right to
+accept the Apocalypse and reject the Epistle, down to the fourth
+century, any other branch would have an equal right, on cause shown,
+to reject both, or, as the Catholic Church afterwards actually did, to
+accept both.
+
+Thus I cannot but think that the thirty-eight are hoist with their own
+petard. Their "appeal to antiquity" turns out to be nothing but a
+round-about way of appealing to the tribunal, the jurisdiction of
+which they affect to deny. Having rested the world of Christian
+supernaturalism on the elephant of biblical infallibility, and
+furnished the elephant with standing ground on the tortoise of
+"antiquity," they, like their famous Hindoo analogue, have been
+content to look no further; and have thereby been spared the horror of
+discovering that the tortoise rests on a grievously fragile
+construction, to a great extent the work of that very intellectual
+operation which they anathematise and repudiate.
+
+Moreover, there is another point to be considered. It is of course
+true that a Christian Church (whether the Christian Church, or not,
+depends on the connotation of the definite article) existed before the
+Christian scriptures; and that the infallibility of these depends upon
+the infallibility of the judgment of the persons who selected the
+books of which they are composed, out of the mass of literature
+current among the early Christians. The logical acumen of Augustine
+showed him that the authority of the Gospel he preached must rest on
+that of the Church to which he belonged.[11] But it is no less true
+that the Hebrew and the Septuagint versions of most, if not all, of
+the Old Testament books existed before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth;
+and that their divine authority is presupposed by, and therefore can
+hardly depend upon, the religious body constituted by his disciples.
+As everybody knows, the very conception of a "Christ" is purely
+Jewish. The validity of the argument from the Messianic prophecies
+vanishes unless their infallible authority is granted; and, as a
+matter of fact, whether we turn to the Gospels, the Epistles, or the
+writings of the early Apologists, the Jewish scriptures are recognised
+as the highest court of appeal of the Christian.
+
+The proposal to cite Christian "antiquity" as a witness to the
+infallibility of the Old Testament, when its own claims to authority
+vanish, if certain propositions contained in the Old Testament are
+erroneous, hardly satisfies the requirements of lay logic. It is as if
+a claimant to be sole legatee, under another kind of testament, should
+offer his assertion as sufficient evidence of the validity of the
+will. And, even were not such a circular, or rather rotatory,
+argument, that the infallibility of the Bible is testified by the
+infallible Church, whose infallibility is testified by the infallible
+Bible, too absurd for serious consideration, it remains permissible to
+ask, Where and when the Church, during the period of its
+infallibility, as limited by Anglican dogmatic necessities, has
+officially decreed the "actual historical truth of all records" in the
+Old Testament? Was Augustine heretical when he denied the actual
+historical truth of the record of the Creation? Father Suarez,
+standing on later Roman tradition, may have a right to declare that he
+was; but it does not lie in the mouth of those who limit their appeal
+to that early "antiquity," in which Augustine played so great a part,
+to say so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the watchers of the course of the world of thought, some view
+with delight and some with horror, the recrudescence of
+Supernaturalism which manifests itself among us, in shapes ranged
+along the whole flight of steps, which, in this case, separates the
+sublime from the ridiculous--from Neo-Catholicism and Inner-light
+mysticism, at the top, to unclean things, not worthy of mention in the
+same breath, at the bottom. In my poor opinion, the importance of
+these manifestations is often greatly over-estimated. The extant forms
+of Supernaturalism have deep roots in human nature, and will
+undoubtedly die hard; but, in these latter days, they have to cope
+with an enemy whose full strength is only just beginning to be put
+out, and whose forces, gathering strength year by year, are hemming
+them round on every side. This enemy is Science, in the acceptation of
+systematized natural knowledge, which, during the last two centuries,
+has extended those methods of investigation, the worth of which is
+confirmed by daily appeal to Nature, to every region in which the
+Supernatural has hitherto been recognised.
+
+When scientific historical criticism reduced the annals of heroic
+Greece and of regal Rome to the level of fables; when the unity of
+authorship of the _Iliad_ was successfully assailed by scientific
+literary criticism; when scientific physical criticism, after
+exploding the geocentric theory of the universe and reducing the solar
+system itself to one of millions of groups of like cosmic specks,
+circling, at unimaginable distances from one another through infinite
+space, showed the supernaturalistic theories of the duration of the
+earth and of life upon it, to be as inadequate as those of its
+relative dimensions and importance had been; it needed no prophetic
+gift to see that, sooner or later, the Jewish and the early Christian
+records would be treated in the same manner; that the authorship of
+the Hexateuch and of the Gospels would be as severely tested; and that
+the evidence in favour of the veracity of many of the statements found
+in the Scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be
+opposed to the conclusions of physical science. In point of fact, so
+far as I can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential
+strength of these conclusions, ventures now to say that the biblical
+accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural
+sense of the words of the narratives. The most modern Reconcilers
+venture upon is to affirm, that some quite different sense may he put
+upon the words; and that this non-natural sense may, with a little
+trouble, be manipulated into some sort of noncontradiction of
+scientific truth.
+
+My purpose, in the essay (XVI.) which treats of the narrative of the
+Deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such event as
+that described ever took place; to exhibit the untrustworthy character
+of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism; and, finally, to
+account for its origin, by producing a form of those ancient legends
+of pagan Chald�a, from which the biblical compilation is manifestly
+derived. I have yet to learn that the main propositions of this essay
+can be seriously challenged.
+
+In the essays (II., III.) on the narrative of the Creation, I have
+endeavoured to controvert the assertion that modern science supports,
+either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or any
+interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the
+narrative, quite apart from particular details. The first chapter of
+Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of
+life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution.
+The first chapter of Genesis teaches the successive origin--firstly,
+of all the plants, secondly, of all the aquatic and aerial animals,
+thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals, which now exist--during
+distinct intervals of time; modern science teaches that, throughout
+all the duration of an immensely long past so far as we have any
+adequate knowledge of it (that is as far back as the Silurian epoch),
+plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals have co-existed; that
+the earliest known are unlike those which at present exist; and that
+the modern species have come into existence as the last terms of a
+series, the members of which have appeared one after another. Thus,
+far from confirming the account in Genesis, the results of modern
+science, so far as they go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly
+discordant with it.
+
+Yet, if the pretensions to infallibility set up, not by the ancient
+Hebrew writings themselves, but by the ecclesiastical champions and
+friends from whom they may well pray to be delivered, thus shatter
+themselves against the rock of natural knowledge, in respect of the
+two most important of all events, the origin of things and the
+palingenesis of terrestrial life, what historical credit dare any
+serious thinker attach to the narratives of the fabrication of Eve, of
+the Fall, of the commerce between the _Bene Elohim_ and the daughters
+of men, which lie between the creational and the diluvial legends?
+And, if these are to lose all historical worth, what becomes of the
+infallibility of those who, according to the later scriptures, have
+accepted them, argued from them, and staked far-reaching dogmatic
+conclusions upon their historical accuracy?
+
+It is the merest ostrich policy for contemporary ecclesiasticism to
+try to hide its Hexateuchal head--in the hope that the inseparable
+connection of its body with pre-Abrahamic legends may be overlooked.
+The question will still be asked, if the first nine chapters of the
+Pentateuch are unhistorical, how is the historical accuracy of the
+remainder to be guaranteed? What more intrinsic claim has the story of
+the Exodus than that of the Deluge, to belief? If God did not walk in
+the Garden of Eden, how can we be assured that he spoke from Sinai?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In some other of the following essays (IX., X., XI., XII., XIV., XV.)
+I have endeavoured to show that sober and well-founded physical and
+literary criticism plays no less havoc with the doctrine that the
+canonical scriptures of the New Testament "declare incontrovertibly
+the actual historical truth in all records." We are told that the
+Gospels contain a true revelation of the spiritual world--a
+proposition which, in one sense of the word "spiritual," I should not
+think it necessary to dispute. But, when it is taken to signify that
+everything we are told about the world of spirits in these books is
+infallibly true; that we are bound to accept the demonology which
+constitutes an inseparable part of their teaching; and to profess
+belief in a Supernaturalism as gross as that of any primitive
+people--it is at any rate permissible to ask why? Science may be
+unable to define the limits of possibility, but it cannot escape from
+the moral obligation to weigh the evidence in favour of any alleged
+wonderful occurrence; and I have endeavoured to show that the evidence
+for the Gadarene miracle is altogether worthless. We have simply
+three, partially discrepant, versions of a story, about the primitive
+form, the origin, and the authority for which we know absolutely
+nothing. But the evidence in favour of the Gadarene miracle is as good
+as that for any other.
+
+Elsewhere, I have pointed out that it is utterly beside the mark to
+declaim against these conclusions on the ground of their asserted
+tendency to deprive mankind of the consolations of the Christian
+faith, and to destroy the foundations of morality; still less to brand
+them with the question-begging vituperative appellation of
+"infidelity." The point is not whether they are wicked; but, whether,
+from the point of view of scientific method, they are irrefragably
+true. If they are, they will be accepted in time, whether they are
+wicked, or not wicked. Nature, so far as we have been able to attain
+to any insight into her ways, recks little about consolation and makes
+for righteousness by very round-about paths. And, at any rate,
+whatever may be possible for other people, it is becoming less and
+less possible for the man who puts his faith in scientific methods of
+ascertaining truth, and is accustomed to have that faith justified by
+daily experience, to be consciously false to his principle in any
+matter. But the number of such men, driven into the use of scientific
+methods of inquiry and taught to trust them, by their education, their
+daily professional and business needs, is increasing and will
+continually increase. The phraseology of Supernaturalism may remain on
+men's lips, but in practice they are Naturalists. The magistrate who
+listens with devout attention to the precept "Thou shalt not suffer a
+witch to live" on Sunday, on Monday, dismisses, as intrinsically
+absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against some old woman;
+the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for
+rational modes of treatment would have but a short tenure of office;
+even parish clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as
+the wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men, not
+to the churches, but to the drains. In spite of prayers for the
+success of our arms and _Te Deums_ for victory, our real faith is in
+big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in knowledge of the science
+of warfare; in energy, courage, and discipline. In these, as in all
+other practical affairs, we act on the aphorism "_Laborare est
+orare_"; we admit that intelligent work is the only acceptable
+worship; and that, whether there be a Supernature or not, our business
+is with Nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is important to note that the principle of the scientific
+Naturalism of the latter half of the nineteenth century, in which the
+intellectual movement of the Renascence has culminated, and which was
+first clearly formulated by Descartes, leads not to the denial of the
+existence of any Supernature;[12] but simply to the denial of the
+validity of the evidence adduced in favour of this, or of that, extant
+form of Supernaturalism.
+
+Looking at the matter from the most rigidly scientific point of view,
+the assumption that, amidst the myriads of worlds scattered through
+endless space, there can be no intelligence, as much greater than
+man's as his is greater than a blackbeetle's; no being endowed with
+powers of influencing the course of nature as much greater than his,
+as his is greater than a snail's seems to me not merely baseless, but
+impertinent. Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is
+known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending
+scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from
+omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. If our intelligence can,
+in some matters, surely reproduce the past of thousands of years ago
+and anticipate the future, thousands of years hence, it is clearly
+within the limits of possibility that some greater intellect, even of
+the same order, may be able to mirror the whole past and the whole
+future; if the universe is penetrated by a medium of such a nature
+that a magnetic needle on the earth answers to a commotion in the sun,
+an omnipresent agent is also conceivable; if our insignificant
+knowledge gives us some influence over events, practical omniscience
+may confer indefinably greater power. Finally, if evidence that a
+thing may be, were equivalent to proof that it is, analogy might
+justify the construction of a naturalistic theology and demonology not
+less wonderful than the current supernatural; just as it might justify
+the peopling of Mars, or of Jupiter, with living forms to which
+terrestrial biology offers no parallel. Until human life is longer and
+the duties of the present press less heavily, I do not think that wise
+men will occupy themselves with Jovian, or Martian, natural history;
+and they will probably agree to a verdict of "not proven" in respect
+of naturalistic theology, taking refuge in that agnostic confession,
+which appears to me to be the only position for people who object to
+say that they know what they are quite aware they do not know. As to
+the interests of morality, I am disposed to think that if mankind
+could be got to act up to this last principle in every relation of
+life, a reformation would be effected such as the world has not yet
+seen; an approximation to the millennium, such as no supernaturalistic
+religion has ever yet succeeded, or seems likely ever to succeed, in
+effecting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have hitherto dwelt upon scientific Naturalism chiefly in its
+critical and destructive aspect. But the present incarnation of the
+spirit of the Renascence differs from its predecessor in the
+eighteenth century, in that it builds up, as well as pulls down.
+
+That of which it has laid the foundation, of which it is already
+raising the superstructure, is the doctrine of evolution. But so many
+strange misconceptions are current about this doctrine--it is attacked
+on such false grounds by its enemies, and made to cover so much that
+is disputable by some of its friends, that I think it well to define
+as clearly as I can, what I do not and what I do understand by the
+doctrine.
+
+I have nothing to say to any "Philosophy of Evolution." Attempts to
+construct such a philosophy may be as useful, nay, even as admirable,
+as was the attempt of Descartes to get at a theory of the universe by
+the same _a priori_ road; but, in my judgment, they are as premature.
+Nor, for this purpose, have I to do with any theory of the "Origin of
+Species," much as I value that which is known as the Darwinian theory.
+That the doctrine of natural selection presupposes evolution is quite
+true; but it is not true that evolution necessarily implies natural
+selection. In fact, evolution might conceivably have taken place
+without the development of groups possessing the characters of
+species.
+
+For me, the doctrine of evolution is no speculation, but a
+generalisation of certain facts, which may be observed by any one who
+will take the necessary trouble. These facts are those which are
+classed by biologists under the heads of Embryology and of
+Pal�ontology. Embryology proves that every higher form of individual
+life becomes what it is by a process of gradual differentiation from
+an extremely low form; pal�ontology proves, in some cases, and renders
+probable in all, that the oldest types of a group are the lowest; and
+that they have been followed by a gradual succession of more and more
+differentiated forms. It is simply a fact, that evolution of the
+individual animal and plant is taking place, as a natural process, in
+millions and millions of cases every day; it is a fact, that the
+species which have succeeded one another in the past, do, in many
+cases, present just those morphological relations, which they must
+possess, if they had proceeded, one from the other, by an analogous
+process of evolution.
+
+The alternative presented, therefore, is: either the forms of one and
+the same type--say, _e.g._, that of the Horse tribe[13]--arose
+successively, but independently of one another, at intervals, during
+myriads of years; or, the later forms are modified descendants of the
+earlier. And the latter supposition is so vastly more probable than
+the former, that rational men will adopt it, unless satisfactory
+evidence to the contrary can be produced. The objection sometimes put
+forward, that no one yet professes to have seen one species pass into
+another, comes oddly from those who believe that mankind are all
+descended from Adam. Has any one then yet seen the production of
+negroes from a white stock, or _vice vers�_? Moreover, is it
+absolutely necessary to have watched every step of the progress of a
+planet, to be justified in concluding that it really does go round the
+sun? If so, astronomy is in a bad way.
+
+I do not, for a moment, presume to suggest that some one, far better
+acquainted than I am with astronomy and physics; or that a master of
+the new chemistry, with its extraordinary revelations; or that a
+student of the development of human society, of language, and of
+religions, may not find a sufficient foundation for the doctrine of
+evolution in these several regions. On the contrary, I rejoice to see
+that scientific investigation, in all directions, is tending to the
+same result. And it may well be, that it is only my long occupation
+with biological matters that leads me to feel safer among them than
+anywhere else. Be that as it may, I take my stand on the facts of
+embryology and of pal�ontology; and I hold that our present knowledge
+of these facts is sufficiently thorough and extensive to justify the
+assertion that all future philosophical and theological speculations
+will have to accommodate themselves to some such common body of
+established truths as the following:--
+
+1. Plants and animals have existed on our planet for many hundred
+thousand, probably millions, of years. During this time, their forms,
+or species, have undergone a succession of changes, which eventually
+gave rise to the species which constitute the present living
+population of the earth. There is no evidence, nor any reason to
+suspect, that this secular process of evolution is other than a part
+of the ordinary course of nature; there is no more ground for
+imagining the occurrence of supernatural intervention, at any moment
+in the development of species in the past, than there is for supposing
+such intervention to take place, at any moment in the development of
+an individual animal or plant, at the present day.
+
+2. At present, every individual animal or plant commences its
+existence as an organism of extremely simple anatomical structure; and
+it acquires all the complexity it ultimately possesses by gradual
+differentiation into parts of various structure and function. When a
+series of specific forms of the same type, extending over a long
+period of past time, is examined, the relation between the earlier and
+the later forms is analogous to that between earlier and later stages
+of individual development. Therefore, it is a probable conclusion
+that, if we could follow living beings back to their earlier states,
+we should find them to present forms similar to those of the
+individual germ, or, what comes to the same thing, of those lowest
+known organisms which stand upon the boundary line between plants and
+animals. At present, our knowledge of the ancient living world stops
+very far short of this point.
+
+3. It is generally agreed, and there is certainly no evidence to the
+contrary, that all plants are devoid of consciousness; that they
+neither feel, desire, nor think. It is conceivable that the evolution
+of the primordial living substance should have taken place only along
+the plant line. In that case, the result might have been a wealth of
+vegetable life, as great, perhaps as varied, as at present, though
+certainly widely different from the present flora, in the evolution of
+which animals have played so great a part. But the living world thus
+constituted would be simply an admirable piece of unconscious
+machinery, the working out of which lay potentially in its primitive
+composition; pleasure and pain would have no place in it; it would be
+a veritable Garden of Eden without any tree of the knowledge of good
+and evil. The question of the moral government of such a world could
+no more be asked, than we could reasonably seek for a moral purpose in
+a kaleidoscope.
+
+4. How far down the scale of animal life the phenomena of
+consciousness are manifested, it is impossible to say. No one doubts
+their presence in his fellow-men; and, unless any strict Cartesians
+are left, no one doubts that mammals and birds are to be reckoned
+creatures that have feelings analogous to our smell, taste, sight,
+hearing, touch, pleasure, and pain. For my own part, I should be
+disposed to extend this analogical judgment a good deal further. On
+the other hand, if the lowest forms of plants are to be denied
+consciousness, I do not see on what ground it is to be ascribed to the
+lowest animals. I find it hard to believe that an infusory animalcule,
+a foraminifer, or a fresh-water polype is capable of feeling; and, in
+spite of Shakspere, I have doubts about the great sensitiveness of the
+"poor beetle that we tread upon." The question is equally perplexing
+when we turn to the stages of development of the individual. Granted a
+fowl feels; that the chick just hatched feels; that the chick when it
+chirps within the egg may possibly feel; what is to be said of it on
+the fifth day, when the bird is there, but with all its tissues
+nascent? Still more, on the first day, when it is nothing but a flat
+cellular disk? I certainly cannot bring myself to believe that this
+disk feels. Yet if it does not, there must be some time in the three
+weeks, between the first day and the day of hatching, when, as a
+concomitant, or a consequence, of the attainment by the brain of the
+chick of a certain stage of structural evolution, consciousness makes
+its appearance. I have frequently expressed my incapacity to
+understand the nature of the relation between consciousness and a
+certain anatomical tissue, which is thus established by observation.
+But the fact remains that, so far as observation and experiment go,
+they teach us that the psychical phenomena are dependent on the
+physical.
+
+In like manner, if fishes, insects, scorpions, and such animals as the
+pearly nautilus, possess feeling, then undoubtedly consciousness was
+present in the world as far back as the Silurian epoch. But, if the
+earliest animals were similar to our rhizopods and monads, there must
+have been some time, between the much earlier epoch in which they
+constituted the whole animal population and the Silurian, in which
+feeling dawned, in consequence of the organism having reached the
+stage of evolution on which it depends.
+
+5. Consciousness has various forms, which may be manifested
+independently of one another. The feelings of light and colour, of
+sound, of touch, though so often associated with those of pleasure and
+pain, are, by nature, as entirely independent of them as is thinking.
+An animal devoid of the feelings of pleasure and of pain, may
+nevertheless exhibit all the effects of sensation and purposive
+action. Therefore, it would be a justifiable hypothesis that, long
+after organic evolution had attained to consciousness, pleasure and
+pain were still absent. Such a world would be without either happiness
+or misery; no act could be punished and none could be rewarded; and it
+could have no moral purpose.
+
+6. Suppose, for argument's sake, that all mammals and birds are
+subjects of pleasure and pain. Then we may be certain that these forms
+of consciousness were in existence at the beginning of the Mesozoic
+epoch. From that time forth, pleasure has been distributed without
+reference to merit, and pain inflicted without reference to demerit,
+throughout all but a mere fraction of the higher animals. Moreover,
+the amount and the severity of the pain, no less than the variety and
+acuteness of the pleasure, have increased with every advance in the
+scale of evolution. As suffering came into the world, not in
+consequence of a fall, but of a rise, in the scale of being, so every
+further rise has brought more suffering. As the evidence stands it
+would appear that the sort of brain which characterizes the highest
+mammals and which, so far as we know, is the indispensable condition
+of the highest sensibility, did not come into existence before the
+Tertiary epoch. The primordial anthropoid was probably, in this
+respect, on much the same footing as his pithecoid kin. Like them he
+stood upon his "natural rights," gratified all his desires to the best
+of his ability, and was as incapable of either right or wrong doing
+as they. It would be as absurd as in their case, to regard his
+pleasures, any more than theirs, as moral rewards, and his pains, any
+more than theirs, as moral punishments.
+
+7. From the remotest ages of which we have any cognizance, death has
+been the natural and, apparently, the necessary concomitant of life.
+In our hypothetical world (3), inhabited by nothing but plants, death
+must have very early resulted from the struggle for existence: many of
+the crowd must have jostled one another out of the conditions on which
+life depends. The occurrence of death, as far back as we have any
+fossil record of life, however, needs not to be proved by such
+arguments; for, if there had been no death there would have been no
+fossil remains, such as the great majority of those we met with. Not
+only was there death in the world, as far as the record of life takes
+us; but, ever since mammals and birds have been preyed upon by
+carnivorous animals, there has been painful death, inflicted by
+mechanisms specially adapted for inflicting it.
+
+8. Those who are acquainted with the closeness of the structural
+relations between the human organisation and that of the mammals which
+come nearest to him, on the one hand; and with the pal�ontological
+history of such animals as horses and dogs, on the other; will not be
+disposed to question the origin of man from forms which stand in the
+same sort of relation to _Homo sapiens_, as _Hipparion_ does to
+_Equus_. I think it a conclusion, fully justified by analogy, that,
+sooner or later, we shall discover the remains of our less specialised
+primatic ancestors in the strata which have yielded the less
+specialised equine and canine quadrupeds. At present, fossil remains
+of men do not take us hack further than the later part of the
+Quaternary epoch; and, as was to be expected, they do not differ more
+from existing men, than Quaternary horses differ from existing horses.
+Still earlier we find traces of man, in implements, such as are used
+by the ruder savages at the present day. Later, the remains of the
+pal�olithic and neolithic conditions take us gradually from the savage
+state to the civilizations of Egypt and of Mycen�; though the true
+chronological order of the remains actually discovered may be
+uncertain.
+
+9. Much has yet to be learned, but, at present, natural knowledge
+affords no support to the notion that men have fallen from a higher to
+a lower state. On the contrary, everything points to a slow natural
+evolution; which, favoured by the surrounding conditions in such
+localities as the valleys of the Yang-tse-kang, the Euphrates, and the
+Nile, reached a relatively high pitch, five or six thousand years ago;
+while, in many other regions, the savage condition has persisted down
+to our day. In all this vast lapse of time there is not a trace of the
+occurrence of any general destruction of the human race; not the
+smallest indication that man has been treated on any other principles
+than the rest of the animal world.
+
+10. The results of the process of evolution in the case of man, and in
+that of his more nearly allied contemporaries, have been marvellously
+different. Yet it is easy to see that small primitive differences of a
+certain order, must, in the long run, bring about a wide divergence of
+the human stock from the others. It is a reasonable supposition that,
+in the earliest human organisms, an improved brain, a voice more
+capable of modulation and articulation, limbs which lent themselves
+better to gesture, a more perfect hand, capable among other things of
+imitating form in plastic or other material, were combined with the
+curiosity, the mimetic tendency, the strong family affection of the
+next lower group; and that they were accompanied by exceptional length
+of life and a prolonged minority. The last two peculiarities are
+obviously calculated to strengthen the family organisation, and to
+give great weight to its educative influences. The potentiality of
+language, as the vocal symbol of thought, lay in the faculty of
+modulating and articulating the voice. The potentiality of writing, as
+the visual symbol of thought, lay in the hand that could draw; and in
+the mimetic tendency, which, as we know, was gratified by drawing, as
+far back as the days of Quaternary man. With speech as the record, in
+tradition, of the experience of more than one generation; with writing
+as the record of that of any number of generations; the experience of
+the race, tested and corrected generation after generation, could be
+stored up and made the starting point for fresh progress. Having these
+perfectly natural factors of the evolutionary process in man before
+us, it seems unnecessary to go further a-field in search of others.
+
+11. That the doctrine of evolution implies a former state of innocence
+of mankind is quite true; but, as I have remarked, it is the innocence
+of the ape and of the tiger, whose acts, however they may run counter
+to the principles of morality, it would be absurd to blame. The lust
+of the one and the ferocity of the other are as much provided for in
+their organisation, are as clear evidences of design, as any other
+features that can be named.
+
+Observation and experiment upon the phenomena of society soon taught
+men that, in order to obtain the advantages of social existence,
+certain rules must be observed. Morality commenced with society.
+Society is possible only upon the condition that the members of it
+shall surrender more or less of their individual freedom of action. In
+primitive societies, individual selfishness is a centrifugal force of
+such intensity that it is constantly bringing the social organisation
+to the verge of destruction. Hence the prominence of the positive
+rules of obedience to the elders; of standing by the family or the
+tribe in all emergencies; of fulfilling the religious rites,
+non-observance of which is conceived to damage it with the
+supernatural powers, belief in whose existence is one of the earliest
+products of human thought; and of the negative rules which restrain
+each from meddling with the life or property of another.
+
+12. The highest conceivable form of human society is that in which the
+desire to do what is best for the whole dominates and limits the
+action of every member of that society. The more complex the social
+organisation the greater the number of acts from which each man must
+abstain if he desires to do that which is best for all. Thus the
+progressive evolution of society means increasing restriction of
+individual freedom in certain directions.
+
+With the advance of civilisation, and the growth of cities and of
+nations by the coalescence of families and of tribes, the rules which
+constitute the common foundation of morality and of law became more
+numerous and complicated, and the temptations to break or evade many
+of them stronger. In the absence of a clear apprehension of the
+natural sanctions of these rules, a supernatural sanction was assumed;
+and imagination supplied the motives which reason was supposed to be
+incompetent to furnish. Religion, at first independent of morality,
+gradually took morality under its protection; and the supernaturalists
+have ever since tried to persuade mankind that the existence of ethics
+is bound up with that of supernaturalism.
+
+I am not of that opinion. But, whether it is correct or otherwise, it
+is very clear to me that, as Beelzebub is not to be cast out by the
+aid of Beelzebub, so morality is not to be established by immorality.
+It is, we are told, the special peculiarity of the devil that he was a
+liar from the beginning. If we set out in life with pretending to know
+that which we do not know; with professing to accept for proof
+evidence which we are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shutting
+our eyes and our ears to facts which militate against this or that
+comfortable hypothesis; we are assuredly doing our best to deserve the
+same character.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have not the presumption to imagine that, in spite of all my
+efforts, errors may not have crept into these propositions. But I am
+tolerably confident that time will prove them to be substantially
+correct. And if they are so, I confess I do not see how any extant
+supernaturalistic system can also claim exactness. That they are
+irreconcilable with the biblical cosmogony, anthropology, and
+theodicy is obvious; but they are no less inconsistent with the
+sentimental Deism of the "Vicaire Savoyard" and his numerous modern
+progeny. It is as impossible, to my mind, to suppose that the
+evolutionary process was set going with full foreknowledge of the
+result and yet with what we should understand by a purely benevolent
+intention, as it is to imagine that the intention was purely
+malevolent. And the prevalence of dualistic theories from the earliest
+times to the present day--whether in the shape of the doctrine of the
+inherently evil nature of matter; of an Ahriman; of a hard and cruel
+Demiurge; of a diabolical "prince of this world," show how widely this
+difficulty has been felt.
+
+Many seem to think that, when it is admitted that the ancient
+literature, contained in our Bibles, has no more claim to
+infallibility than any other ancient literature; when it is proved
+that the Israelites and their Christian successors accepted a great
+many supernaturalistic theories and legends which have no better
+foundation than those of heathenism, nothing remains to be done but to
+throw the Bible aside as so much waste paper.
+
+I have always opposed this opinion. It appears to me that if there is
+anybody more objectionable than the orthodox Bibliolater it is the
+heterodox Philistine, who can discover in a literature which, in some
+respects, has no superior, nothing but a subject for scoffing and an
+occasion for the display of his conceited ignorance of the debt he
+owes to former generations.
+
+Twenty-two years ago I pleaded for the use of the Bible as an
+instrument of popular education, and I venture to repeat what I then
+said:
+
+"Consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this
+book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in
+English history; that it has become the national Epic of Britain and
+is as familiar to gentle and simple, from John o' Groat's House to
+Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is
+written in the noblest and purest English and abounds in exquisite
+beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the
+veriest hind, who never left his village, to be ignorant of the
+existence of other countries and other civilisations and of a great
+past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in
+the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much
+humanised and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical
+procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the
+interval between the Eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses
+of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as
+they also are earning their payment for their work?"[14]
+
+At the same time, I laid stress upon the necessity of placing such
+instruction in lay hands; in the hope and belief, that it would thus
+gradually accommodate itself to the coming changes of opinion; that
+the theology and the legend would drop more and more out of sight,
+while the perennially interesting historical, literary, and ethical
+contents would come more and more into view.
+
+I may add yet another claim of the Bible to the respect and the
+attention of a democratic age. Throughout the history of the western
+world, the Scriptures, Jewish and Christian, have been the great
+instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and
+political despotism. The Bible has been the _Magna Charta_ of the poor
+and of the oppressed; down to modern times, no State has had a
+constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken
+into account, in which the duties, so much more than the privileges,
+of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in
+Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that
+the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness
+of the citizen so strongly laid down. Assuredly, the Bible talks no
+trash about the rights of man; but it insists on the equality of
+duties, on the liberty to bring about that righteousness which is
+somewhat different from struggling for "rights"; on the fraternity of
+taking thought for one's neighbour as for one's self.
+
+So far as such equality, liberty, and fraternity are included under
+the democratic principles which assume the same names, the Bible is
+the most democratic book in the world. As such it began, through the
+heretical sects, to undermine the clerico-political despotism of the
+middle ages, almost as soon as it was formed, in the eleventh century;
+Pope and King had as much as they could do to put down the Albigenses
+and the Waldenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the
+Lollards and the Hussites gave them still more trouble in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth; from the sixteenth century onward, the
+Protestant sects have favoured political freedom in proportion to the
+degree in which they have refused to acknowledge any ultimate
+authority save that of the Bible.
+
+But the enormous influence which has thus been exerted by the Jewish
+and Christian Scriptures has had no necessary connection with
+cosmogonies, demonologies, and miraculous interferences. Their
+strength lies in their appeals, not to the reason, but to the ethical
+sense. I do not say that even the highest biblical ideal is exclusive
+of others or needs no supplement. But I do believe that the human race
+is not yet, possibly may never be, in a position to dispense with it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [8]  With a few exceptions, which are duly noted when
+          they amount to more than verbal corrections.
+
+     [9]  _Declaration on the Truth of Holy Scripture._ The
+          _Times_, 18th December, 1891.
+
+     [10] _Declaration_, Article 10.
+
+     [11] Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi ecclesi�
+          Catholic� me commoveret auctoritas.--_Contra Epistolam
+          Manich�i_, cap. v.
+
+     [12] I employ the words "Supernature" and "Supernatural"
+          in their popular senses. For myself, I am bound to say
+          that the term "Nature" covers the totality of that
+          which is. The world of psychical phenomena appears to
+          me to be as much part of "Nature" as the world of
+          physical phenomena; and I am unable to perceive any
+          justification for cutting the Universe into two halves,
+          one natural and one supernatural.
+
+     [13] The general reader will find an admirably clear
+          and concise statement of the evidence in this case, in
+          Professor Flower's recently published work _The Horse:
+          a Study in Natural History_.
+
+     [14] "The School Boards: What they Can do and what they
+          May do," 1870. _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 51.
+
+
+
+
+II: SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM
+
+[1887]
+
+
+Next to undue precipitation in anticipating the results of pending
+investigations, the intellectual sin which is commonest and most
+hurtful to those who devote themselves to the increase of knowledge is
+the omission to profit by the experience of their predecessors
+recorded in the history of science and philosophy. It is true that, at
+the present day, there is more excuse than at any former time for such
+neglect. No small labour is needed to raise one's self to the level of
+the acquisitions already made; and able men, who have achieved thus
+much, know that, if they devote themselves body and soul to the
+increase of their store, and avoid looking back, with as much care as
+if the injunction laid on Lot and his family were binding upon them,
+such devotion is sure to be richly repaid by the joys of the
+discoverer and the solace of fame, if not by rewards of a less
+elevated character.
+
+So, following the advice of Francis Bacon, we refuse _inter mortuos
+qu�rere vivum_; we leave the past to bury its dead, and ignore our
+intellectual ancestry. Nor are we content with that. We follow the
+evil example set us, not only by Bacon but by almost all the men of
+the Renaissance, in pouring scorn upon the work of our immediate
+spiritual forefathers, the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. It is
+accepted as a truth which is indisputable, that, for seven or eight
+centuries, a long succession of able men--some of them of transcendent
+acuteness and encyclop�dic knowledge--devoted laborious lives to the
+grave discussion of mere frivolities and the arduous pursuit of
+intellectual will-o'-the-wisps. To say nothing of a little modesty, a
+little impartial pondering over personal experience might suggest a
+doubt as to the adequacy of this short and easy method of dealing with
+a large chapter of the history of the human mind. Even an acquaintance
+with popular literature which had extended so far as to include that
+part of the contributions of Sam Slick which contains his weighty
+aphorism that "there is a great deal of human nature in all mankind,"
+might raise a doubt whether, after all, the men of that epoch, who,
+take them all round, were endowed with wisdom and folly in much the
+same proportion as ourselves, were likely to display nothing better
+than the qualities of energetic idiots, when they devoted their
+faculties to the elucidation of problems which were to them, and
+indeed are to us, the most serious which life has to offer. Speaking
+for myself, the longer I live the more I am disposed to think that
+there is much less either of pure folly, or of pure wickedness, in the
+world than is commonly supposed. It may be doubted if any sane man
+ever said to himself, "Evil, be thou my good," and I have never yet
+had the good fortune to meet with a perfect fool. When I have brought
+to the inquiry the patience and long-suffering which become a
+scientific investigator, the most promising specimens have turned out
+to have a good deal to say for themselves from their own point of
+view. And, sometimes, calm reflection has taught the humiliating
+lesson, that their point of view was not so different from my own as I
+had fondly imagined. Comprehension is more than half-way to sympathy,
+here as elsewhere.
+
+If we turn our attention to scholastic philosophy in the frame of mind
+suggested by these prefatory remarks, it assumes a very different
+character from that which it bears in general estimation. No doubt it
+is surrounded by a dense thicket of thorny logomachies and obscured by
+the dust-clouds of a barbarous and perplexing terminology. But suppose
+that, undeterred by much grime and by many scratches, the explorer
+has toiled through this jungle, he comes to an open country which is
+amazingly like his dear native land. The hills which he has to climb,
+the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same; there is the
+same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the unknown below;
+the means of travelling are the same, and the goal is the same.
+
+That goal for the schoolmen, as for us, is the settlement of the
+question how far the universe is the manifestation of a rational
+order; in other words, how far logical deduction from indisputable
+premisses will account for what which has happened and does happen.
+That was the object of scholasticism, and, so far as I am aware, the
+object of modern science may be expressed in the same terms. In
+pursuit of this end, modern science takes into account all the
+phenomena of the universe which are brought to our knowledge by
+observation or by experiment. It admits that there are two worlds to
+be considered, the one physical and the other psychical; and that
+though there is a most intimate relation and interconnection between
+the two, the bridge from one to the other has yet to be found; that
+their phenomena run, not in one series, but along two parallel lines.
+
+To the schoolmen the duality of the universe appeared under a
+different aspect. How this came about will not be intelligible unless
+we clearly apprehend the fact that they did really believe in
+dogmatic Christianity as it was formulated by the Roman Church. They
+did not give a mere dull assent to anything the Church told them on
+Sundays, and ignore her teachings for the rest of the week; but they
+lived and moved and had their being in that supersensible theological
+world which was created, or rather grew up, during the first four
+centuries of our reckoning, and which occupied their thoughts far more
+than the sensible world in which their earthly lot was cast.
+
+For the most part, we learn history from the colourless compendiums or
+partisan briefs of mere scholars, who have too little acquaintance
+with practical life, and too little insight into speculative problems,
+to understand that about which they write. In historical science, as
+in all sciences which have to do with concrete phenomena, laboratory
+practice is indispensable; and the laboratory practice of historical
+science is afforded, on the one hand, by active social and political
+life, and, on the other, by the study of those tendencies and
+operations of the mind which embody themselves in philosophical and
+theological systems. Thucydides and Tacitus, and, to come nearer our
+own time, Hume and Grote, were men of affairs, and had acquired, by
+direct contact with social and political history in the making, the
+secret of understanding how such history is made. Our notions of the
+intellectual history of the middle ages are, unfortunately, too often
+derived from writers who have never seriously grappled with
+philosophical and theological problems: and hence that strange myth of
+a millennium of moonshine to which I have adverted.
+
+However, no very profound study of the works of contemporary writers
+who, without devoting themselves specially to theology or philosophy,
+were learned and enlightened--such men, for example, as Eginhard or
+Dante--is necessary to convince one's self, that, for them, the world
+of the theologian was an ever-present and awful reality. From the
+centre of that world, the Divine Trinity, surrounded by a hierarchy of
+angels and saints, contemplated and governed the insignificant
+sensible world in which the inferior spirits of men, burdened with the
+debasement of their material embodiment and continually solicited to
+their perdition by a no less numerous and almost as powerful hierarchy
+of devils, were constantly struggling on the edge of the pit of
+everlasting damnation.[15]
+
+The men of the middle ages believed that through the Scriptures, the
+traditions of the Fathers, and the authority of the Church, they were
+in possession of far more, and more trustworthy, information with
+respect to the nature and order of things in the theological world
+than they had in regard to the nature and order of things in the
+sensible world. And, if the two sources of information came into
+conflict, so much the worse for the sensible world, which, after all,
+was more or less under the dominion of Satan. Let us suppose that a
+telescope powerful enough to show us what is going on in the nebula of
+the sword of Orion, should reveal a world in which stones fell
+upwards, parallel lines met, and the fourth dimension of space was
+quite obvious. Men of science would have only two alternatives before
+them. Either the terrestrial and the nebular facts must be brought
+into harmony by such feats of subtle sophistry as the human mind is
+always capable of performing when driven into a corner; or science
+must throw down its arms in despair, and commit suicide, either by the
+admission that the universe is, after all, irrational, inasmuch as
+that which is truth in one corner of it is absurdity in another, or by
+a declaration of incompetency.
+
+In the middle ages, the labours of those great men who endeavoured to
+reconcile the system of thought which started from the data of pure
+reason, with that which started from the data of Roman theology,
+produced the system of thought which is known as scholastic
+philosophy; the alternative of surrender and suicide is exemplified by
+Avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true
+in theology may be false in philosophy, and _vice vers�_; and by
+Sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis "_Quod nil scitur_."
+
+To those who deny the validity of one of the primary assumptions of
+the disputants--who decline, on the ground of the utter insufficiency
+of the evidence, to put faith in the reality of that other world, the
+geography and the inhabitants of which are so confidently described in
+the so-called[16] Christianity of Catholicism--the long and bitter
+contest, which engaged the best intellects for so many centuries, may
+seem a terrible illustration of the wasteful way in which the struggle
+for existence is carried on in the world of thought, no less than in
+that of matter. But there is a more cheerful mode of looking at the
+history of scholasticism. It ground and sharpened the dialectic
+implements of our race as perhaps nothing but discussions, in the
+result of which men thought their eternal, no less than their
+temporal, interests were at stake, could have done. When a logical
+blunder may ensure combustion, not only in the next world but in this,
+the construction of syllogisms acquires a peculiar interest. Moreover,
+the schools kept the thinking faculty alive and active, when the
+disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by
+the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural
+knowledge, might well have stifled it. And, finally, it should be
+remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually
+certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since
+they began to think, and which, I suppose, will present themselves so
+long as they continue to think. Consider, for example, the controversy
+of the Realists and the Nominalists, which was carried on with varying
+fortunes, and under various names, from the time of Scotus Erigena to
+the end of the scholastic period. Has it now a merely antiquarian
+interest? Has Nominalism, in any of its modifications, so completely
+won the day that Realism may be regarded as dead and buried without
+hope of resurrection? Many people seem to think so, but it appears to
+me that, without taking Catholic philosophy into consideration, one
+has not to look about far to find evidence that Realism is still to
+the fore, and indeed extremely lively.[17]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The other day I happened to meet with a report of a sermon recently
+preached in St. Paul's Cathedral. From internal evidence I am inclined
+to think that the report is substantially correct. But as I have not
+the slightest intention of finding fault with the eminent theologian
+and eloquent preacher to whom the discourse is attributed, for
+employment of scientific language in a manner for which he could find
+only too many scientific precedents, the accuracy of the report in
+detail is not to the purpose. I may safely take it as the embodiment
+of views which are thought to be quite in accordance with science by
+many excellent, instructed, and intelligent people.
+
+     The preacher further contended that it was yet more
+     difficult to realise that our earthly home would become the
+     scene of a vast physical catastrophe. Imagination recoils
+     from the idea that the course of nature--the phrase helps to
+     disguise the truth--so unvarying and regular, the ordered
+     sequence of movement and life, should suddenly cease.
+     Imagination looks more reasonable when it assumes the air of
+     scientific reason. Physical law, it says, will prevent the
+     occurrence of catastrophes only anticipated by an apostle in
+     an unscientific age. Might not there, however, be a
+     suspension of a lower law by the intervention of a higher?
+     Thus every time we lifted our arms we defied the laws of
+     gravitation, and in railways and steamboats powerful laws
+     were held in check by others. The flood and the destruction
+     of Sodom and Gomorrah were brought about by the operation of
+     existing laws, and may it not be that in His illimitable
+     universe there are more important laws than those which
+     surround our puny life--moral and not merely physical
+     forces? Is it inconceivable that the day will come when
+     these royal and ultimate laws shall wreck the natural order
+     of things which seems so stable and so fair? Earthquakes
+     were not things of remote antiquity, as an island off Italy,
+     the Eastern Archipelago, Greece, and Chicago bore
+     witness.... In presence of a great earthquake men feel how
+     powerless they are, and their very knowledge adds to their
+     weakness. The end of human probation, the final dissolution
+     of organised society, and the destruction of man's home on
+     the surface of the globe, were none of them violently
+     contrary to our present experience, but only the extension
+     of present facts. The presentiment of death was common;
+     there were felt to be many things which threatened the
+     existence of society; and as our globe was a ball of fire,
+     at any moment the pent-up forces which surge and boil
+     beneath our feet might be poured out ("Pall Mall Gazette,"
+     December 6, 1886).
+
+The preacher appears to entertain the notion that the occurrence of a
+"catastrophe"[18] involves a breach of the present order of
+nature--that it is an event incompatible with the physical laws which
+at present obtain. He seems to be of opinion that "scientific reason"
+lends its authority to the imaginative supposition that physical law
+will prevent the occurrence of the "catastrophes" anticipated by an
+unscientific apostle.
+
+Scientific reason, like Homer, sometimes nods; but I am not aware that
+it has ever dreamed dreams of this sort. The fundamental axiom of
+scientific thought is that there is not, never has been, and never
+will be, any disorder in nature. The admission of the occurrence of
+any event which was not the logical consequence of the immediately
+antecedent events, according to these definite, ascertained, or
+unascertained rules which we call the "laws of nature," would be an
+act of self-destruction on the part of science.
+
+"Catastrophe" is a relative conception. For ourselves it means an
+event which brings about very terrible consequences to man, or
+impresses his mind by its magnitude relatively to him. But events
+which are quite in the natural order of things to us, may be
+frightful catastrophes to other sentient beings. Surely no
+interruption of the order of nature is involved if, in the course of
+descending through an Alpine pine-wood, I jump upon an anthill and in
+a moment wreck a whole city and destroy a hundred thousand of its
+inhabitants. To the ants the catastrophe is worse than the earthquake
+of Lisbon. To me it is the natural and necessary consequence of the
+laws of matter in motion. A redistribution of energy has taken place,
+which is perfectly in accordance with natural order, however
+unpleasant its effects may be to the ants.
+
+Imagination, inspired by scientific reason, and not merely assuming
+the airs thereof, as it unfortunately too often does in the pulpit, so
+far from having any right to repudiate catastrophes and deny the
+possibility of the cessation of motion and life, easily finds
+justification for the exactly contrary course. Kant in his famous
+"Theory of the Heavens" declares the end of the world and its
+reduction to a formless condition to be a necessary consequence of the
+causes to which it owes its origin and continuance. And, as to
+catastrophes of prodigious magnitude and frequent occurrence, they
+were the favourite _asylum ignoranti�_ of geologists, not a quarter of
+a century ago. If modern geology is becoming more and more disinclined
+to call in catastrophes to its aid, it is not because of any _a
+priori_ difficulty in reconciling the occurrence of such events with
+the universality of order, but because the _a posteriori_ evidence of
+the occurrence of events of this character in past times has more or
+less completely broken down.
+
+It is, to say the least, highly probable that this earth is a mass of
+extremely hot matter, invested by a cooled crust, through which the
+hot interior still continues to cool, though with extreme slowness. It
+is no less probable that the faults and dislocations, the foldings and
+fractures, everywhere visible in the stratified crust, its large and
+slow movements through miles of elevation and depression, and its
+small and rapid movements which give rise to the innumerable perceived
+and unperceived earthquakes which are constantly occurring, are due to
+the shrinkage of the crust on its cooling and contracting nucleus.
+
+Without going beyond the range of fair scientific analogy, conditions
+are easily conceivable which should render the loss of heat far more
+rapid than it is at present; and such an occurrence would be just as
+much in accordance with ascertained laws of nature, as the more rapid
+cooling of a red-hot bar, when it is thrust into cold water, than when
+it remains in the air. But much more rapid cooling might entail a
+shifting and rearrangement of the parts of the crust of the earth on a
+scale of unprecedented magnitude, and bring about "catastrophes" to
+which the earthquake of Lisbon is but a trifle. It is conceivable that
+man and his works and all the higher forms of animal life should be
+utterly destroyed; that mountain regions should he converted into
+ocean depths and the floor of oceans raised into mountains; and the
+earth become a scene of horror which even the lurid fancy of the
+writer of the Apocalypse would fail to portray. And yet, to the eye of
+science, there would he no more disorder here than in the sabbatical
+peace of a summer sea. Not a link in the chain of natural causes and
+effects would he broken, nowhere would there be the slightest
+indication of the "suspension of a lower law by a higher." If a sober
+scientific thinker is inclined to put little faith in the wild
+vaticinations of universal ruin which, in a less saintly person than
+the seer of Patmos, might seem to be dictated by the fury of a
+revengeful fanatic, rather than by the spirit of the teacher who bid
+men love their enemies, it is not on the ground that they contradict
+scientific principles; but because the evidence of their scientific
+value does not fulfil the conditions on which weight is attached to
+evidence. The imagination which supposes that it does, simply does not
+"assume the air of scientific reason."
+
+I repeat that, if imagination is used within the limits laid down by
+science, disorder is unimaginable. If a being endowed with perfect
+intellectual and �sthetic faculties, but devoid of the capacity for
+suffering pain, either physical or moral, were to devote his utmost
+powers to the investigation of nature, the universe would seem to him
+to be a sort of kaleidoscope, in which, at every successive moment of
+time, a new arrangement of parts of exquisite beauty and symmetry
+would present itself; and each of them would show itself to be the
+logical consequence of the preceding arrangement, under the conditions
+which we call the laws of nature. Such a spectator might well be
+filled with that _Amor intellectualis Dei_, the beatific vision of the
+_vita contemplativa_, which some of the greatest thinkers of all ages,
+Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, have regarded as the only conceivable
+eternal felicity; and the vision of illimitable suffering, as if
+sensitive beings were unregarded animalcules which had got between the
+bits of glass of the kaleidoscope, which mars the prospect to us poor
+mortals, in no wise alters the fact that order is lord of all, and
+disorder only a name for that part of the order which gives us pain.
+
+The other fallacious employment of the names of scientific conceptions
+which pervades the preacher's utterance, brings me back to the proper
+topic of the present essay. It is the use of the word "law" as if it
+denoted a thing--as if a "law of nature," as science understands it,
+were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the
+phenomena expressed by that law are brought about. The preacher asks,
+"Might not there be a suspension of a lower law by the intervention of
+a higher?" He tells us that every time we lift our arms we defy the
+law of gravitation. He asks whether some day certain "royal and
+ultimate laws" may not come and "wreck" those laws which are at
+present, it would appear, acting as nature's police. It is evident,
+from these expressions, that "laws," in the mind of the preacher, are
+entities having an objective existence in a graduated hierarchy. And
+it would appear that the "royal laws" are by no means to be regarded
+as constitutional royalties: at any moment, they may, like Eastern
+despots, descend in wrath among the middle-class and plebeian laws,
+which have hitherto done the drudgery of the world's work, and, to use
+phraseology not unknown in our seats of learning--"make hay" of their
+belongings. Or perhaps a still more familiar analogy has suggested
+this singular theory; and it is thought that high laws may "suspend"
+low laws, as a bishop may suspend a curate.
+
+Far be it from me to controvert these views, if any one likes to hold
+them. All I wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of
+"laws" has nothing to do with modern science. It is scholastic
+realism--realism as intense and unmitigated as that of Scotus Erigena
+a thousand years ago. The essence of such realism is that it maintains
+the objective existence of universals, or, as we call them nowadays,
+general propositions. It affirms, for example, that "man" is a real
+thing, apart from individual men, having its existence, not in the
+sensible, but in the intelligible world, and clothing itself with the
+accidents of sense to make the Jack and Tom and Harry whom we know.
+Strange as such a notion may appear to modern scientific thought, it
+really pervades ordinary language. There are few people who would, at
+once, hesitate to admit that colour, for example, exists apart from
+the mind which conceives the idea of colour. They hold it to be
+something which resides in the coloured object; and so far they are as
+much Realists as if they had sat at Plato's feet. Reflection on the
+facts of the case must, I imagine, convince every one that "colour"
+is--not a mere name, which was the extreme Nominalist position--but a
+name for that group of states of feeling which we call blue, red,
+yellow, and so on, and which we believe to be caused by luminiferous
+vibrations which have not the slightest resemblance to colour; while
+these again are set afoot by states of the body to which we ascribe
+colour, but which are equally devoid of likeness to colour.
+
+In the same way, a law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the
+product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come
+under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than
+colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the manner in
+which experience shows that bodies, which are free to move, do, in
+fact, move towards one another. But the other facts of observation,
+that bodies are not always moving in this fashion, and sometimes move
+in a contrary direction, are implied in the words "free to move." If
+it is a law of nature that bodies tend to move towards one another in
+a certain way; it is another and no less true law of nature that, if
+bodies are not free to move as they tend to do, either in consequence
+of an obstacle, or of a contrary impulse from some other source of
+energy than that to which we give the name of gravitation, they either
+stop still, or go another way.
+
+Scientifically speaking, it is the acme of absurdity to talk of a man
+defying the law of gravitation when he lifts his arm. The general
+store of energy in the universe working through terrestrial matter is
+doubtless tending to bring the man's arm down; but the particular
+fraction of that energy which is working through certain of his
+nervous and muscular organs is tending to drive it up, and more energy
+being expended on the arm in the upward than in the downward
+direction, the arm goes up accordingly. But the law of gravitation is
+no more defied, in this case, than when a grocer throws so much sugar
+into the empty pan of his scales that the one which contains the
+weight kicks the beam.
+
+The tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are
+agents, instead of being, as they really are, a mere record of
+experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does
+happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an
+interesting psychological fact; and would be unintelligible if the
+tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong.
+
+Even at the present day, and in the writings of men who would at once
+repudiate scholastic realism in any form, "law" is often inadvertently
+employed in the sense of cause, just as, in common life, a man will
+say that he is compelled by the law to do so and so, when, in point of
+fact, all he means is that the law orders him to do it, and tells him
+what will happen if he does not do it. We commonly hear of bodies
+falling to the ground by reason of the law of gravitation, whereas
+that law is simply the record of the fact that, according to all
+experience, they have so fallen (when free to move), and of the
+grounds of a reasonable expectation that they will so fall. If it
+should be worth anybody's while to seek for examples of such misuse of
+language on my own part, I am not at all sure he might not succeed,
+though I have usually been on my guard against such looseness of
+expression. If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope
+that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I
+venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no
+wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an error for
+which he might find good precedents. But it is one of those errors
+which, in the case of a person engaged in scientific pursuits, do
+little harm, because it is corrected as soon as its consequences
+become obvious; while those who know physical science only by name
+are, as has been seen, easily led to build a mighty fabric of
+unrealities on this fundamental fallacy. In fact, the habitual use of
+the word "law," in the sense of an active thing, is almost a mark of
+pseudo-science; it characterises the writings of those who have
+appropriated the forms of science without knowing anything of its
+substance.
+
+There are two classes of these people: those who are ready to believe
+in any miracle so long as it is guaranteed by ecclesiastical
+authority; and those who are ready to believe in any miracle so long
+as it has some different guarantee. The believers in what are
+ordinarily called miracles--those who accept the miraculous narratives
+which they are taught to think are essential elements of religious
+doctrine--are in the one category; the spirit-rappers, table-turners,
+and all the other devotees of the occult sciences of our day are in
+the other: and, if they disagree in most things they agree in this,
+namely, that they ascribe to science a dictum that is not scientific;
+and that they endeavour to upset the dictum thus foisted on science by
+a realistic argument which is equally unscientific.
+
+It is asserted, for example, that, on a particular occasion, water
+was turned into wine; and, on the other hand, it is asserted that a
+man or a woman "levitated" to the ceiling, floated about there, and
+finally sailed out by the window. And it is assumed that the
+pardonable scepticism, with which most scientific men receive these
+statements, is due to the fact that they feel themselves justified in
+denying the possibility of any such metamorphosis of water, or of any
+such levitation, because such events are contrary to the laws of
+nature. So the question of the preacher is triumphantly put: How do
+you know that there are not "higher" laws of nature than your chemical
+and physical laws, and that these higher laws may not intervene and
+"wreck" the latter?
+
+The plain answer to this question is, Why should anybody be called
+upon to say how he knows that which he does not know? You are assuming
+that laws are agents--efficient causes of that which happens--and that
+one law can interfere with another. To us, that assumption is as
+nonsensical as if you were to talk of a proposition of Euclid being
+the cause of the diagram which illustrates it, or of the integral
+calculus interfering with the rule of three. Your question really
+implies that we pretend to complete knowledge not only of all past and
+present phenomena, but of all that are possible in the future, and we
+leave all that sort of thing to the adepts of esoteric Buddhism. Our
+pretensions are infinitely more modest. We have succeeded in finding
+out the rules of action of a little bit of the universe; we call these
+rules "laws of nature," not because anybody knows whether they bind
+nature or not, but because we find it is obligatory on us to take them
+into account, both as actors under nature, and as interpreters of
+nature. We have any quantity of genuine miracles of our own, and if
+you will furnish us with as good evidence of your miracles as we have
+of ours, we shall be quite happy to accept them and to amend our
+expression of the laws of nature in accordance with the new facts.
+
+As to the particular cases adduced, we are so perfectly fair-minded as
+to be willing to help your case as far as we can. You are quite
+mistaken in supposing that anybody who is acquainted with the
+possibilities of physical science will undertake categorically to deny
+that water may be turned into wine. Many very competent judges are
+already inclined to think that the bodies, which we have hitherto
+called elementary, are really composite arrangements of the particles
+of a uniform primitive matter. Supposing that view to be correct,
+there would be no more theoretical difficulty about turning water into
+alcohol, ethereal and colouring matters, than there is, at this
+present moment, any practical difficulty in working other such
+miracles; as when we turn sugar into alcohol, carbonic acid,
+glycerine, and succinic acid; or transmute gas-refuse into perfumes
+rarer than musk and dyes richer than Tyrian purple. If the so-called
+"elements," oxygen and hydrogen, which compose water, are aggregates
+of the same ultimate particles, or physical units, as those which
+enter into the structure of the so-called element "carbon," it is
+obvious that alcohol and other substances, composed of carbon,
+hydrogen, and oxygen, may be produced by a rearrangement of some of
+the units of oxygen and hydrogen into the "element" carbon, and their
+synthesis with the rest of the oxygen and hydrogen.
+
+Theoretically, therefore, we can have no sort of objection to your
+miracle. And our reply to the levitators is just the same. Why should
+not your friend "levitate"? Fish are said to rise and sink in the
+water by altering the volume of an internal air-receptacle; and there
+may be many ways science, as yet, knows nothing of, by which we, who
+live at the bottom of an ocean of air, may do the same thing.
+Dialectic gas and wind appear to be by no means wanting among you, and
+why should not long practice in pneumatic philosophy have resulted in
+the internal generation of something a thousand times rarer than
+hydrogen, by which, in accordance with the most ordinary natural laws,
+you would not only rise to the ceiling and float there in
+quasi-angelic posture, but perhaps, as one of your feminine adepts is
+said to have done, flit swifter than train or telegram to
+"still-vexed Bermoothes," and twit Ariel, if he happens to be there,
+for a sluggard? We have not the presumption to deny the possibility of
+anything you affirm; only, as our brethren are particular about
+evidence, do give us as much to go upon as may save us from being
+roared down by their inextinguishable laughter.
+
+Enough of the realism which clings about "laws." There are plenty of
+other exemplifications of its vitality in modern science, but I will
+cite only one of them.
+
+This is the conception of "vital force" which comes straight from the
+philosophy of Aristotle. It is a fundamental proposition of that
+philosophy that a natural object is composed of two constituents--the
+one its matter, conceived as inert or even, to a certain extent,
+opposed to orderly and purposive motion; the other its form, conceived
+as a quasi-spiritual something, containing or conditioning the actual
+activities of the body and the potentiality of its possible
+activities.
+
+I am disposed to think that the prominence of this conception in
+Aristotle's theory of things arose from the circumstance that he was
+to begin with and throughout his life, devoted to biological studies.
+In fact it is a notion which must force itself upon the mind of any
+one who studies biological phenomena, without reference to general
+physics, as they now stand. Everybody who observes the obvious
+phenomena of the development of a seed into a tree, or of an egg into
+an animal, will note that a relatively formless mass of matter
+gradually grows, takes a definite shape and structure, and, finally,
+begins to perform actions which contribute towards a certain end,
+namely, the maintenance of the individual in the first place, and of
+the species in the second. Starting from the axiom that every event
+has a cause, we have here the _causa finalis_ manifested in the last
+set of phenomena, the _causa materialis_ and _formalis_ in the first,
+while the existence of a _causa efficiens_ within the seed or egg and
+its product, is a corollary from the phenomena of growth and
+metamorphosis, which proceed in unbroken succession and make up the
+life of the animal or plant.
+
+Thus, at starting, the egg or seed is matter having a "form" like all
+other material bodies. But this form has the peculiarity, in
+contradistinction to lower substantial "forms," that it is a power
+which constantly works towards an end by means of living organisation.
+
+So far as I know, Leibnitz is the only philosopher (at the same time a
+man of science, in the modern sense, of the first rank) who has noted
+that the modern conception of Force, as a sort of atmosphere
+enveloping the particles of bodies, and having potential or actual
+activity, is simply a new name for the Aristotelian Form.[19] In
+modern biology, up till within quite recent times, the Aristotelian
+conception held undisputed sway; living matter was endowed with "vital
+force," and that accounted for everything. Whosoever was not satisfied
+with that explanation was treated to that very "plain
+argument"--"confound you eternally"--wherewith Lord Peter overcomes
+the doubts of his brothers in the "Tale of a Tub." "Materialist" was
+the mildest term applied to him--fortunate if he escaped pelting with
+"infidel" and "atheist." There may be scientific Rip Van Winkles
+about, who still hold by vital force; but among those biologists who
+have not been asleep for the last quarter of a century "vital force"
+no longer figures in the vocabulary of science. It is a patent
+survival of realism; the generalisation from experience that all
+living bodies exhibit certain activities of a definite character is
+made the basis of the notion that every living body contains an
+entity, "vital force," which is assumed to be the cause of those
+activities.
+
+It is remarkable, in looking back, to notice to what an extent this
+and other survivals of scholastic realism arrested or, at any rate,
+impeded the application of sound scientific principles to the
+investigation of biological phenomena. When I was beginning to think
+about these matters, the scientific world was occasionally agitated by
+discussions respecting the nature of the "species" and "genera" of
+Naturalists, of a different order from the disputes of a later time.
+I think most were agreed that a "species" was something which existed
+objectively, somehow or other, and had been created by a Divine fiat.
+As to the objective reality of genera, there was a good deal of
+difference of opinion. On the other hand, there were a few who could
+see no objective reality in anything but individuals, and looked upon
+both species and genera as hypostatised universals. As for myself, I
+seem to have unconsciously emulated William of Occam, inasmuch as
+almost the first public discourse I ever ventured upon, dealt with
+"Animal Individuality," and its tendency was to fight the Nominalist
+battle even in that quarter.
+
+Realism appeared in still stranger forms at the time to which I refer.
+The community of plan which is observable in each great group of
+animals was hypostatised into a Platonic idea with the appropriate
+name of "archetype," and we were told, as a disciple of Philo-Jud�us
+might have told us, that this realistic figment was "the archetypal
+light" by which Nature has been guided amidst the "wreck of worlds."
+So, again, another naturalist, who had no less earned a well-deserved
+reputation by his contributions to positive knowledge, put forward a
+theory of the production of living things which, as nearly as the
+increase of knowledge allowed, was a reproduction of the doctrine
+inculcated by the Jewish Cabbala.
+
+Annexing the archetype notion, and carrying it to its full logical
+consequence, the author of this theory conceived that the species of
+animals and plants were so many incarnations of the thoughts of
+God--material representations of Divine ideas--during the particular
+period of the world's history at which they existed. But, under the
+influence of the embryological and pal�ontological discoveries of
+modern times, which had already lent some scientific support to the
+revived ancient theories of cosmical evolution or emanation, the
+ingenious author of this speculation, while denying and repudiating
+the ordinary theory of evolution by successive modification of
+individuals, maintained and endeavoured to prove the occurrence of a
+progressive modification in the divine ideas of successive epochs.
+
+On the foundation of a supposed elevation of organisation in the whole
+living population of any epoch, as compared with that of its
+predecessor, and a supposed complete difference in species between the
+populations of any two epochs (neither of which suppositions has stood
+the test of further inquiry), the author of this speculation based his
+conclusion that the Creator had, so to speak, improved upon his
+thoughts as time went on; and that, as each such amended scheme of
+creation came up, the embodiment of the earlier divine thoughts was
+swept away by a universal catastrophe, and an incarnation of the
+improved ideas took its place. Only after the last such "wreck" thus
+brought about, did the embodiment of a divine thought, in the shape of
+the first man, make its appearance as the _ne plus ultra_ of the
+cosmogonical process.
+
+I imagine that Louis Agassiz, the genial backwoodsman of the science
+of my young days, who did more to open out new tracks in the
+scientific forest than most men, would have been much surprised to
+learn that he was preaching the doctrine of the Cabbala, pure and
+simple. According to this modification of Neoplatonism by contact with
+Hebrew speculation, the divine essence is unknowable--without form or
+attribute; but the interval between it and the world of sense is
+filled by intelligible entities, which are nothing but the familiar
+hypostatised abstractions of the realists. These have emanated, like
+immense waves of light, from the divine centre, and, as ten
+consecutive zones of Sephiroth, form the universe. The farther away
+from the centre, the more the primitive light wanes, until the
+periphery ends in those mere negations, darkness and evil, which are
+the essence of matter. On this, the divine agency transmitted through
+the Sephiroth operates after the fashion of the Aristotelian forms,
+and, at first, produces the lowest of a series of worlds. After a
+certain duration the primitive world is demolished and its fragments
+used up in making a better; and this process is repeated, until at
+length a final world, with man for its crown and finish, makes its
+appearance. It is needless to trace the process of retrogressive
+metamorphosis by which, through the agency of the Messiah, the steps
+of the process of evolution here sketched are retraced. Sufficient has
+been said to prove that the extremist realism current in the
+philosophy of the thirteenth century can be fully matched by the
+speculations of our own time.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [15] There is no exaggeration in this brief and summary view
+          of the Catholic cosmos. But it would be unfair to leave it
+          to be supposed that the Reformation made any essential
+          alteration, except perhaps for the worse, in that cosmology
+          which called itself "Christian." The protagonist of the
+          Reformation, from whom the whole of the Evangelical sects
+          are lineally descended, states the case with that plainness
+          of speech, not to say brutality, which characterised him.
+          Luther says that man is a beast of burden who only moves as
+          his rider orders; sometimes God rides him, and sometimes
+          Satan. "Sic voluntas humana in medio posita est, ceu
+          jumentum; si insederit Deus, vult et vadit, quo vult
+          Deus.... Si insederit Satan, vult et vadit, quo vult Satan;
+          nec est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere, aut eum
+          qu�rere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum obtinendum et
+          possidendum" (_De Servo Arbitrio_, M. Lutheri Opera, ed.
+          1546, t. ii. p. 468). One may hear substantially the same
+          doctrine preached in the parks and at street-corners by
+          zealous volunteer missionaries of Evangelicism, any Sunday,
+          in modern London. Why these doctrines, which are conspicuous
+          by their absence in the four Gospels, should arrogate to
+          themselves the title of Evangelical, in contradistinction to
+          Catholic, Christianity, may well perplex the impartial
+          inquirer, who, if he were obliged to choose between the two,
+          might naturally prefer that which leaves the poor beast of
+          burden a little freedom of choice.
+
+     [16] I say "so-called" not by way of offence, but as a
+          protest against the monstrous assumption that Catholic
+          Christianity is explicitly or implicitly contained in any
+          trustworthy record of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
+
+     [17] It may be desirable to observe that, in modern times,
+          the term "Realism" has acquired a signification wholly
+          different from that which attached to it in the middle ages.
+          We commonly use it as the contrary of Idealism. The Idealist
+          holds that the phenomenal world has only a subjective
+          existence, the Realist that it has an objective existence. I
+          am not aware that any medi�val philosopher was an Idealist
+          in the sense in which we apply the term to Berkeley. In
+          fact, the cardinal defect of their speculations lies in
+          their oversight of the considerations which lead to
+          Idealism. If many of them regarded the material world as a
+          negation, it was an active negation; not zero, but a minus
+          quantity.
+
+     [18] At any rate a catastrophe greater than the flood,
+          which, as I observe with interest, is as calmly assumed by
+          the preacher to be an historical event as if science had
+          never had a word to say on that subject!
+
+     [19] "Les formes des anciens ou Ent�l�chies ne sont autre
+          chose que les forces" (Leibnitz, _Lettre au P�re Bouvet_,
+          1697).
+
+
+
+
+III: SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE
+
+[1887]
+
+
+In the opening sentences of a contribution to the last number of this
+Review,[20] the Duke of Argyll has favoured me with a lecture on the
+proprieties of controversy, to which I should be disposed to listen
+with more docility if his Grace's precepts appeared to me to be based
+upon rational principles, or if his example were more exemplary.
+
+With respect to the latter point, the Duke has thought fit to entitle
+his article "Professor Huxley on Canon Liddon," and thus forces into
+prominence an element of personality, which those who read the paper
+which is the object of the Duke's animadversions will observe I have
+endeavoured, most carefully, to avoid. My criticisms dealt with a
+report of a sermon, published in a newspaper, and thereby addressed to
+all the world. Whether that sermon was preached by A or B was not a
+matter of the smallest consequence; and I went out of my way to
+absolve the learned divine to whom the discourse was attributed from
+the responsibility for statements which, for anything I knew to the
+contrary, might contain imperfect, or inaccurate, representations of
+his views. The assertion that I had the wish, or was beset, by any
+"temptation to attack" Canon Liddon is simply contrary to fact.
+
+But suppose that if, instead of sedulously avoiding even the
+appearance of such attack, I had thought fit to take a different
+course; suppose that, after satisfying myself that the eminent
+clergyman whose name is paraded by the Duke of Argyll had really
+uttered the words attributed to him from the pulpit of St. Paul's,
+what right would any one have to find fault with my action on grounds
+either of justice, expediency, or good taste?
+
+Establishment has its duties as well as its rights. The clergy of a
+State Church enjoy many advantages over those of unprivileged and
+unendowed religious persuasions; but they lie under a correlative
+responsibility to the State, and to every member of the body politic.
+I am not aware that any sacredness attaches to sermons. If preachers
+stray beyond the doctrinal limits set by lay lawyers, the Privy
+Council will see to it; and, if they think fit to use their pulpits
+for the promulgation of literary, or historical, or scientific errors,
+it is not only the right, but the duty, of the humblest layman, who
+may happen to be better informed, to correct the evil effects of such
+perversion of the opportunities which the State affords them; and such
+misuse of the authority which its support lends them. Whatever else it
+may claim to be, in its relations with the State, the Established
+Church is a branch of the Civil Service; and, for those who repudiate
+the ecclesiastical authority of the clergy, they are merely civil
+servants, as much responsible to the English people for the proper
+performance of their duties as any others.
+
+The Duke of Argyll tells us that the "work and calling" of the clergy
+prevent them from "pursuing disputation as others can." I wonder if
+his Grace ever reads the so-called "religious" newspapers. It is not
+an occupation which I should commend to any one who wishes to employ
+his time profitably; but a very short devotion to this exercise will
+suffice to convince him that the "pursuit of disputation," carried to
+a degree of acrimony and vehemence unsurpassed in lay controversies,
+seems to be found quite compatible with the "work and calling" of a
+remarkably large number of the clergy.
+
+Finally, it appears to me that nothing can be in worse taste than the
+assumption that a body of English gentlemen can, by any possibility,
+desire that immunity from criticism which the Duke of Argyll claims
+for them. Nothing would be more personally offensive to me than the
+supposition that I shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any lecture I
+ever gave. I should be utterly ashamed of myself if, when I stood up
+as an instructor of others, I had not taken every pains to assure
+myself of the truth of that which I was about to say; and I should
+feel myself bound to be even more careful with a popular assembly, who
+would take me more or less on trust, than with an audience of
+competent and critical experts.
+
+I decline to assume that the standard of morality, in these matters,
+is lower among the clergy than it is among scientific men. I refuse to
+think that the priest who stands up before a congregation, as the
+minister and interpreter of the Divinity, is less careful in his
+utterances, less ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman who
+comes before his audience, as the minister and interpreter of nature.
+Yet what should we think of the man of science who, when his ignorance
+or his carelessness was exposed, whined about the want of delicacy of
+his critics, or pleaded his "work and calling" as a reason for being
+let alone?
+
+No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to
+dispense with the tonic of criticism. Nothing has done more harm to
+the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regarding
+them, when in the pulpit, as a sort of chartered libertines, whose
+divagations are not to be taken seriously. And I am well assured that
+the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is the
+last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonouring
+protection which has been superfluously thrown over him.
+
+So much for the lecture on propriety. But the Duke of Argyll, to whom
+the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the honour to
+make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admonitions, some on
+philosophical, some on geological, some on biological topics. I can
+but rejoice that the Duke's authority in these matters is not always
+employed to show that I am ignorant of them; on the contrary, I meet
+with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, for which I proffer
+such gratitude as may be due, even if that gratitude is sometimes
+almost overshadowed by surprise.
+
+I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the Duke of Argyll, who
+professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like
+another Balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue.
+
+I denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science of
+the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are violations
+of natural law; and the Duke of Argyll says that he believes my
+"denial to be well-founded. The preacher was answering an objection
+which has now been generally abandoned." Either the preacher knew this
+or he did not know it. It seems to me, as a mere lay teacher, to be a
+pity that the "great dome of St. Paul's" should have been made to
+"echo" (if so be that such stentorian effects were really produced) a
+statement which, admitting the first alternative, was unfair, and,
+admitting the second, was ignorant.[21]
+
+Having thus sacrified one half of the preacher's arguments, the Duke
+of Argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other half. It
+appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence of those
+events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence
+of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary occasional
+consequences of uniform changes. Whence I conclude, his Grace agrees
+with me, that the talk about royal laws "wrecking" ordinary laws may
+be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense.
+
+And now comes a further surprise. After having given these superfluous
+stabs to the slain body of the preacher's argument, my good ally
+remarks, with magnificent calmness: "So far, then, the preacher and
+the professor are at one." "Let them smoke the calumet." By all means:
+smoke would be the most appropriate symbol of this wonderful attempt
+to cover a retreat. After all, the Duke has come to bury the preacher,
+not to praise him; only he makes the funeral obsequies look as much
+like a triumphal procession as possible.
+
+So far as the questions between the preacher and myself are concerned,
+then, I may feel happy. The authority of the Duke of Argyll is ranged
+on my side. But the Duke has raised a number of other questions, with
+respect to which I fear I shall have to dispense with his
+support--nay, even be compelled to differ from him as much, or more,
+than I have done about his Grace's new rendering of the "benefit of
+clergy."
+
+In discussing catastrophes, the Duke indulges in statements, partly
+scientific, partly anecdotic, which appear to me to be somewhat
+misleading. We are told, to begin with, that Sir Charles Lyell's
+doctrine respecting the proper mode of interpreting the facts of
+geology (which is commonly called uniformitarianism) "does not hold
+its head quite so high as it once did." That is great news indeed.
+But is it true? All I can say is that I am aware of nothing that has
+happened of late that can in any way justify it; and my opinion is,
+that the body of Lyell's doctrine, as laid down in that great work,
+"The Principles of Geology," whatever may have happened to its head,
+is a chief and permanent constituent of the foundations of geological
+science.
+
+But this question cannot he advantageously discussed, unless we take
+some pains to discriminate between the essential part of the
+uniformitarian doctrine and its accessories; and it does not appear
+that the Duke of Argyll has carried his studies of geological
+philosophy so far as this point. For he defines uniformitarianism to
+be the assumption of the "extreme slowness and perfect continuity of
+all geological changes."
+
+What "perfect continuity" may mean in this definition, I am by no
+means sure; but I can only imagine that it signifies the absence of
+any break in the course of natural order during the millions of years,
+the lapse of which is recorded by geological phenomena.
+
+Is the Duke of Argyll prepared to say that any geologist of authority,
+at the present day, believes that there is the slightest evidence of
+the occurrence of supernatural intervention, during the long ages of
+which the monuments are preserved to us in the crust of the earth? And
+if he is not, in what sense has this part of the uniformitarian
+doctrine, as he defines it, lowered its pretensions to represent
+scientific truth?
+
+As to the "extreme slowness of all geological changes," it is simply a
+popular error to regard that as, in any wise, a fundamental and
+necessary dogma of uniformitarianism. It is extremely astonishing to
+me that any one who has carefully studied Lyell's great work can have
+so completely failed to appreciate its purport, which yet is "writ
+large" on the very title-page: "The Principles of Geology, being an
+attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by
+reference to causes now in operation." The essence of Lyell's doctrine
+is here written so that those who run may read; and it has nothing to
+do with the quickness or slowness of the past changes of the earth's
+surface; except in so far as existing analogous changes may go on
+slowly, and therefore create a presumption in favour of the slowness
+of past changes.
+
+With that epigrammatic force which characterises his style, Buffon
+wrote, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, in his famous "Th�orie de
+la Terre": "Pour juger de ce qui est arriv�, et m�me de ce qui
+arrivera, nous n'avons qu'� examiner ce qui arrive." The key of the
+past, as of the future, is to be sought in the present; and, only when
+known causes of change have been shown to be insufficient, have we any
+right to have recourse to unknown causes. Geology is as much a
+historical science as arch�ology; and I apprehend that all sound
+historical investigation rests upon this axiom. It underlay all
+Hutton's work and animated Lyell and Scope in their successful efforts
+to revolutionise the geology of half a century ago.
+
+There is no antagonism whatever, and there never was, between the
+belief in the views which had their chief and unwearied advocate in
+Lyell and the belief in the occurrence of catastrophes. The first
+edition of Lyell's "Principles," published in 1830, lies before me;
+and a large part of the first volume is occupied by an account of
+volcanic, seismic, and diluvial catastrophes which have occurred
+within the historical period. Moreover, the author, over and over
+again, expressly draws the attention of his readers to the consistency
+of catastrophes with his doctrine.
+
+     Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed
+     within the last three thousand years the devastation by
+     deluge of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the
+     future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to
+     regard them as part of the present order of nature, and they
+     may be introduced into geological speculations respecting
+     the past, provided that we do not imagine them to have been
+     more frequent or general than we expect them to be in time
+     to come (vol. i. p. 89).
+
+Again:--
+
+     If we regard each of the causes separately, which we know to
+     be at present the most instrumental in remodelling the state
+     of the surface, we shall find that we must expect each to
+     be in action for thousands of years, without producing any
+     extensive alterations in the habitable surface, and then to
+     give rise, during a very brief period, to important
+     revolutions (vol. ii. p. 161).[22]
+
+Lyell quarrelled with the catastrophists then, by no means because
+they assumed that catastrophes occur and have occurred, but because
+they had got into the habit of calling on their god Catastrophe to
+help them, when they ought to have been putting their shoulders to the
+wheel of observation of the present course of nature, in order to help
+themselves out of their difficulties. And geological science has
+become what it is, chiefly because geologists have gradually accepted
+Lyell's doctrine and followed his precepts.
+
+So far as I know anything about the matter, there is nothing that can
+be called proof, that the causes of geological phenomena operated more
+intensely or more rapidly, at any time between the older tertiary and
+the oldest pal�ozoic epochs than they have done between the older
+tertiary epoch and the present day. And if that is so, uniformitarianism,
+even as limited by Lyell,[23] has no call to lower its crest. But if
+the facts were otherwise, the position Lyell took up remains
+impregnable. He did not say that the geological operations of nature
+were never more rapid, or more vast, than they are now; what he did
+maintain is the very different proposition that there is no good
+evidence of anything of the kind. And that proposition has not yet
+been shown to be incorrect.
+
+I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the "Principles of
+Geology" in my young days; and, long before the year 1856, my mind was
+familiar with the truth that "the doctrine of uniformity is not
+incompatible with great and sudden changes," which, as I have shown,
+is taught _totidem verbis_ in that work. Even had it been possible for
+me to shut my eyes to the sense of what I had read in the
+"Principles," Whewell's "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,"
+published in 1840, a work with which I was also tolerably familiar,
+must have opened them. For the always acute, if not always profound,
+author, in arguing against Lyell's uniformitarianism, expressly points
+out that it does not in any way contravene the occurrence of
+catastrophes.
+
+     With regard to such occurrences [earthquakes, deluges,
+     etc.], terrible as they appear at the time, they may not
+     much affect the average rate of change: there may be a
+     _cycle_, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change:
+     and if such cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still
+     call the order of nature uniform, notwithstanding the
+     periods of violence which it involves.[24]
+
+The reader who has followed me through this brief chapter of the
+history of geological philosophy will probably find the following
+passage in the paper of the Duke of Argyll to be not a little
+remarkable:--
+
+     Many years ago, when I had the honor of being President of
+     the British Association,[25] I ventured to point out, in the
+     presence and in the hearing of that most distinguished man
+     [Sir C. Lyell] that the doctrine of uniformity was not
+     incompatible with great and sudden changes, since cycles of
+     these and other cycles of comparative rest might well be
+     constituent parts of that uniformity which he asserted.
+     Lyell did not object to this extended interpretation of his
+     own doctrine, and indeed expressed to me his entire
+     concurrence.
+
+I should think he did; for, as I have shown, there was nothing in it
+that Lyell himself had not said, six-and-twenty years before, and
+enforced, three years before; and it is almost verbally identical
+with the view of uniformitarianism taken by Whewell, sixteen years
+before, in a work with which, one would think, that any one who
+undertakes to discuss the philosophy of science should be familiar.
+
+Thirty years have elapsed since the beginner of 1856 persuaded himself
+that he enlightened the foremost geologist of his time, and one of the
+most acute and far-seeing men of science of any time, as to the scope
+of the doctrines which the veteran philosopher had grown gray in
+promulgating; and the Duke of Argyll's acquaintance with the
+literature of geology has not, even now, become sufficiently profound
+to dissipate that pleasant delusion.
+
+If the Duke of Argyll's guidance in that branch of physical science,
+with which alone he has given evidence of any practical acquaintance,
+is thus unsafe, I may breathe more freely in setting my opinion
+against the authoritative deliverances of his Grace about matters
+which lie outside the province of geology.
+
+And here the Duke's paper offers me such a wealth of opportunities
+that choice becomes embarrassing. I must bear in mind the good old
+adage, "Non multa sed multum." Tempting as it would be to follow the
+Duke through his labyrinthine misunderstandings of the ordinary
+terminology of philosophy and to comment on the curious
+unintelligibility which hangs about his frequent outpourings of
+fervid language, limits of space oblige me to restrict myself to those
+points, the discussion of which may help to enlighten the public in
+respect of matters of more importance than the competence of my Mentor
+for the task which he has undertaken.
+
+I am not sure when the employment of the word Law, in the sense in
+which we speak of laws of nature, commenced, but examples of it may be
+found in the works of Bacon, Descartes, and Spinoza. Bacon employs
+"Law" as the equivalent of "Form," and I am inclined to think that he
+may be responsible for a good deal of the confusion that has
+subsequently arisen; but I am not aware that the term is used by other
+authorities, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in any other
+sense than that of "rule" or "definite order" of the coexistence of
+things or succession of events in nature. Descartes speaks of "r�gles,
+que je nomme les lois de la nature." Leibnitz says "loi ou r�gle
+g�n�rale," as if he considered the terms interchangeable.
+
+The Duke of Argyll, however, affirms that the "law of gravitation" as
+put forth by Newton was something more than the statement of an
+observed order. He admits that Kepler's three laws "were an observed
+order of facts and nothing more." As to the law of gravitation, "it
+contains an element which Kepler's laws did not contain, even an
+element of causation, the recognition of which belongs to a higher
+category of intellectual conceptions than that which is concerned in
+the mere observation and record of separate and apparently unconnected
+facts." There is hardly a line in these paragraphs which appears to me
+to be indisputable. But, to confine myself to the matter in hand, I
+cannot conceive that any one who had taken ordinary pains to acquaint
+himself with the real nature of either Kepler's or Newton's work could
+have written them. That the labours of Kepler, of all men in the
+world, should be called "mere observation and record," is truly
+wonderful. And any one who will look into the "Principia," or the
+"Optics," or the "Letters to Bentley," will see, even if he has no
+more special knowledge of the topics discussed than I have, that
+Newton over and over again insisted that he had nothing to do with
+gravitation as a physical cause, and that when he used the terms
+attraction, force, and the like, he employed them, as he says,
+"_mathematic�_" and not "_physic�_."
+
+     How these attractions [of gravity, magnetism, and
+     electricity] may be performed, I do not here consider. What
+     I call attraction may be performed by impulse or by some
+     other means unknown to me. I use that word here to signify
+     only in a general way any force by which bodies tend towards
+     one another, whatever be the cause.[26]
+
+According to my reading of the best authorities upon the history of
+science, Newton discovered neither gravitation, nor the law of
+gravitation; nor did he pretend to offer more than a conjecture as to
+the causation of gravitation. Moreover, his assertion that the notion
+of a body acting where it is not, is one that no competent thinker
+could entertain, is antagonistic to the whole current conception of
+attractive and repulsive forces, and therefore of "the attractive
+force of gravitation." What, then, was that labour of unsurpassed
+magnitude and excellence and of immortal influence which Newton did
+perform? In the first place, Newton defined the laws, rules, or
+observed order of the phenomena of motion, which come under our daily
+observation, with greater precision than had been before attained;
+and, by following out, with marvellous power and subtlety, the
+mathematical consequences of these rules, he almost created the modern
+science of pure mechanics. In the second place, applying exactly the
+same method to the explication of the facts of astronomy as that which
+was applied a century and a half later to the facts of geology by
+Lyell, he set himself to solve the following problem. Assuming that
+all bodies, free to move, tend to approach one another as the earth
+and the bodies on it do; assuming that the strength of that tendency
+is directly as the mass and inversely as the squares of the distances;
+assuming that the laws of motion, determined for terrestrial bodies,
+hold good throughout the universe; assuming that the planets and
+their satellites were created and placed at their observed mean
+distances, and that each received a certain impulse from the Creator;
+will the form of the orbits, the varying rates of motion of the
+planets, and the ratio between those rates and their distances from
+the sun, which must follow by mathematical reasoning from these
+premisses, agree with the order of facts determined by Kepler and
+others, or not?
+
+Newton, employing mathematical methods which are the admiration of
+adepts, but which no one but himself appears to have been able to use
+with ease, not only answered this question in the affirmative, but
+stayed not his constructive genius before it had founded modern
+physical astronomy.
+
+The historians of mechanical and of astronomical science appear to be
+agreed that he was the first person who clearly and distinctly put
+forth the hypothesis that the phenomena comprehended under the general
+name of "gravity" follow the same order throughout the universe, and
+that all material bodies exhibit these phenomena; so that, in this
+sense, the idea of universal gravitation may, doubtless, be properly
+ascribed to him.
+
+Newton proved that the laws of Kepler were particular consequences of
+the laws of motion and the law of gravitation--in other words, the
+reason of the first lay in the two latter. But to talk of the law of
+gravitation alone as the reason of Kepler's laws, and still more as
+standing in any causal relation to Kepler's laws, is simply a misuse
+of language. It would really be interesting if the Duke of Argyll
+would explain how he proposes to set about showing that the elliptical
+form of the orbits of the planets, the constant area described by the
+radius vector, and the proportionality of the squares of the periodic
+times to the cubes of the distances from the sun, are either caused by
+the "force of gravitation" or deducible from the "law of gravitation."
+I conceive that it would be about as apposite to say that the various
+compounds of nitrogen with oxygen are caused by chemical attraction
+and deducible from the atomic theory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Newton assuredly lent no shadow of support to the modern
+pseudo-scientific philosophy which confounds laws with causes. I have
+not taken the trouble to trace out this commonest of fallacies to its
+first beginning; but I was familiar with it in full bloom more than
+thirty years ago, in a work which had a great vogue in its day--the
+"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"--of which the first
+edition was published in 1844.
+
+It is full of apt and forcible illustrations of pseudo-scientific
+realism. Consider, for example, this gem serene. When a boy who has
+climbed a tree loses his hold of the branch, "the law of gravitation
+unrelentingly pulls him to the ground, and then he is hurt," whereby
+the Almighty is quite relieved from any responsibility for the
+accident. Here is the "law of gravitation" acting as a cause in a way
+quite in accordance with the Duke of Argyll's conception of it. In
+fact, in the mind of the author of the "Vestiges," "laws" are
+existences intermediate between the Creator and His works, like the
+"ideas" of the Platonisers or the Logos of the Alexandrians.[27] I may
+cite a passage which is quite in the vein of Philo:--
+
+     We have seen powerful evidences that the construction of
+     this globe and its associates; and, inferentially, that of
+     all the other globes in space, was the result, not of any
+     immediate or personal exertion on the part of the Deity, but
+     of natural laws which are the expression of His will. What
+     is to hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also
+     a result of natural laws which are in like manner an
+     expression of His will? (p. 154, 1st edition).
+
+And creation "operating by law" is constantly cited as relieving the
+Creator from trouble about insignificant details.
+
+I am perplexed to picture to myself the state of mind which accepts
+these verbal juggleries. It is intelligible that the Creator should
+operate according to such rules as he might think fit to lay down for
+himself (and therefore according to law); but that would leave the
+operation of his will just as much a direct personal act as it would
+be under any other circumstances. I can also understand that (as in
+Leibnitz's caricature of Newton's views) the Creator might have made
+the cosmical machine, and, after setting it going, have left it to
+itself till it needed repair. But then, by the supposition, his
+personal responsibility would have been involved in all that it did;
+just as much as a dynamiter is responsible for what happens, when he
+has set his machine going and left it to explode.
+
+The only hypothesis which gives a sort of mad consistency to the
+Vestigiarian's views is the supposition that laws are a kind of angels
+or demiurgoi, who, being supplied with the Great Architect's plan,
+were permitted to settle the details among themselves. Accepting this
+doctrine, the conception of royal laws and plebeian laws, and of those
+more than Homeric contests in which the big laws "wreck" the little
+ones, becomes quite intelligible. And, in fact, the honour of the
+paternity of those remarkable ideas which come into full flower in the
+preacher's discourse must, so far as my imperfect knowledge goes, be
+attributed to the author of the "Vestiges."
+
+But the author of the "Vestiges" is not the only writer who is
+responsible for the current pseudo-scientific mystifications which
+hang about the term "law." When I wrote my paper about "Scientific and
+Pseudo-Scientific Realism," I had not read a work by the Duke of
+Argyll, "The Reign of Law," which, I believe, has enjoyed, possibly
+still enjoys, a widespread popularity. But the vivacity of the Duke's
+attack led me to think it possible that criticisms directed elsewhere
+might have come home to him. And, in fact, I find that the second
+chapter of the work in question, which is entitled "Law; its
+definitions," is, from my point of view, a sort of "summa" of
+pseudo-scientific philosophy. It will be worth while to examine it in
+some detail.
+
+In the first place, it is to be noted that the author of the "Reign of
+Law" admits that "law," in many cases, means nothing more than the
+statement of the order in which facts occur, or, as he says, "an
+observed order of facts" (p. 66). But his appreciation of the value of
+accuracy of expression does not hinder him from adding, almost in the
+same breath, "In this sense the laws of nature are simply those facts
+of nature which recur according to rule" (p. 66). Thus "laws," which
+were rightly said to be the statement of an order of facts in one
+paragraph, are declared to be the facts themselves in the next.
+
+We are next told that, though it may be customary and permissible to
+use "law" in the sense of a statement of the order of facts, this is a
+low use of the word; and, indeed, two pages farther on, the writer,
+flatly contradicting himself, altogether denies its admissibility.
+
+     An observed order of facts, to be entitled to the rank of a
+     law, must be an order so constant and uniform as to indicate
+     necessity, and necessity can only arise out of the action
+     of some compelling force (p. 68).
+
+This is undoubtedly one of the most singular propositions that I have
+ever met with in a professedly scientific work, and its rarity is
+embellished by another direct self-contradiction which it implies. For
+on the preceding page (67), when the Duke of Argyll is speaking of the
+laws of Kepler, which he admits to be laws, and which are types of
+that which men of science understand by "laws," he says that they are
+"simply and purely an order of facts." Moreover, he adds: "A very
+large proportion of the laws of every science are laws of this kind
+and in this sense."
+
+If, according to the Duke of Argyll's admission, law is understood, in
+this sense, thus widely and constantly by scientific authorities,
+where is the justification for his unqualified assertion that such
+statements of the observed order of facts are not "entitled to the
+rank" of laws?
+
+But let us examine the consequences of the really interesting
+proposition I have just quoted. I presume that it is a law of nature
+that "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points."
+This law affirms the constant association of a certain fact of form
+with a certain fact of dimension. Whether the notion of necessity
+which attaches to it has an _a priori_, or an _a posteriori_ origin is
+a question not relevant to the present discussion. But I would beg to
+be informed, if it is necessary, where is the "compelling force" out
+of which the necessity arises; and further, if it is not necessary,
+whether it loses the character of a law of nature?
+
+I take it to be the law of nature, based on unexceptionable evidence,
+that the mass of matter remains unchanged, whatever chemical or other
+modifications it may undergo. This law is one of the foundations of
+chemistry. But it is by no means necessary. It is quite possible to
+imagine that the mass of matter should vary according to
+circumstances, as we know its weight does. Moreover, the determination
+of the "force" which makes mass constant (if there is any
+intelligibility in that form of words) would not, so far as I can see,
+confer any more validity on the law than it has now.
+
+There is a law of nature, so well vouched by experience, that all
+mankind, from pure logicians in search of examples to parish sextons
+in search of fees, confide in it. This is the law that "all men are
+mortal." It is simply a statement of the observed order of facts that
+all men sooner or later die. I am not acquainted with any law of
+nature which is more "constant and uniform" than this. But will any
+one tell me that death is "necessary"? Certainly there is no _�
+priori_ necessity in the case, for various men have been imagined to
+be immortal. And I should be glad to be informed of any "necessity"
+that can be deduced from biological considerations. It is quite
+conceivable, as has recently been pointed out, that some of the lowest
+forms of life may be immortal, after a fashion. However this may be, I
+would further ask, supposing "all men are mortal" to be a real law of
+nature, where and what is that to which, with any propriety, the title
+of "compelling force" of the law can be given?
+
+On page 69, the Duke of Argyll asserts that the law of gravitation "is
+a law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause." But this
+revival of the teaching of the "Vestiges" has already been examined
+and disposed of; and when the Duke of Argyll states that the "observed
+order" which Kepler had discovered was simply a necessary consequence
+of the force of "gravitation," I need not recapitulate the evidence
+which proves such a statement to be wholly fallacious. But it may be
+useful to say, once more, that, at this present moment, nobody knows
+anything about the existence of a "force" of gravitation apart from
+the fact; that Newton declared the ordinary notion of such force to be
+inconceivable; that various attempts have been made to account for the
+order of facts we call gravitation, without recourse to the notion of
+attractive force; that, if such a force exists, it is utterly
+incompetent to account for Kepler's laws, without taking into the
+reckoning a great number of other considerations; and, finally, that
+all we know about the "force" of gravitation, or any other so-called
+"force," is that it is a name for the hypothetical cause of an
+observed order of facts.
+
+Thus, when the Duke of Argyll says: "Force, ascertained according to
+some measure of its operation--this is indeed one of the definitions,
+but only one, of a scientific law" (p. 71) I reply that it is a
+definition which must be repudiated by every one who possesses an
+adequate acquaintance with either the facts, or the philosophy, of
+science, and be relegated to the limbo of pseudo-scientific fallacies.
+If the human mind has never entertained this notion of "force," nay,
+if it substituted bare invariable succession for the ordinary notion of
+causation, the idea of law, as the expression of a constantly-observed
+order, which generates a corresponding intensity of expectation in our
+minds, would have exactly the same value, and play its part in real
+science, exactly as it does now.
+
+It is needless to extend further the present excursus on the origin
+and history of modern pseudo-science. Under such high patronage as it
+has enjoyed, it has grown and flourished until, nowadays, it is
+becoming somewhat rampant. It has its weekly "Ephemerides," in which
+every new pseudo-scientific mare's-nest is hailed and belauded with
+the unconscious unfairness of ignorance; and an army of "reconcilers,"
+enlisted in its service, whose business seems to be to mix the black
+of dogma and the white of science into the neutral tint of what they
+call liberal theology.
+
+I remember that, not long after the publication of the "Vestiges," a
+shrewd and sarcastic countryman of the author defined it as "cauld
+kail made het again." A cynic might find amusement in the reflection
+that, at the present time, the principles and the methods of the
+much-vilified Vestigiarian are being "made het again"; and are not
+only "echoed by the dome of St. Paul's," but thundered from the castle
+of Inverary. But my turn of mind is not cynical, and I can but regret
+the waste of time and energy bestowed on the endeavour to deal with
+the most difficult problems of science, by those who have neither
+undergone the discipline, nor possess the information, which are
+indispensable to the successful issue of such an enterprise.
+
+I have already had occasion to remark that the Duke of Argyll's views
+of the conduct of controversy are different from mine; and this
+much-to-be lamented discrepancy becomes yet more accentuated when the
+Duke reaches biological topics. Anything that was good enough for Sir
+Charles Lyell, in his department of study, is certainly good enough
+for me in mine; and I by no means demur to being pedagogically
+instructed about a variety of matters with which it has been the
+business of my life to try to acquaint myself. But the Duke of Argyll
+is not content with favouring me with his opinions about my own
+business; he also answers for mine; and, at that point, really the
+worm must turn. I am told that "no one knows better than Professor
+Huxley" a variety of things which I really do not know; and I am said
+to be a disciple of that "Positive Philosophy" which I have, over and
+over again, publicly repudiated in language which is certainly not
+lacking in intelligibility whatever may be its other defects.
+
+I am told that I have been amusing myself with a "metaphysical
+exercitation or logomachy" (may I remark incidentally that these are
+not quite convertible terms?), when, to the best of my belief, I have
+been trying to expose a process of mystification, based upon the use
+of scientific language by writers who exhibit no sign of scientific
+training, of accurate scientific knowledge, or of clear ideas
+respecting the philosophy of science, which is doing very serious harm
+to the public. Naturally enough, they take the lion's skin of
+scientific phraseology for evidence that the voice which issues from
+beneath it is the voice of science, and I desire to relieve them from
+the consequences of their error.
+
+The Duke of Argyll asks, apparently with sorrow that it should be his
+duty to subject me to reproof--
+
+     What shall we say of a philosophy which confounds the
+     organic with the inorganic, and, refusing to take note of a
+     difference so profound, assumes to explain under one common
+     abstraction, the movements due to gravitation and the
+     movements due to the mind of man?
+
+To which I may fitly reply by another question: What shall we say to a
+controversialist who attributes to the subject of his attack opinions
+which are notoriously not his; and expresses himself in such a manner
+that it is obvious he is unacquainted with even the rudiments of that
+knowledge which is necessary to the discussion into which he has
+rushed?
+
+What line of my writing can the Duke of Argyll produce which confounds
+the organic with the inorganic?
+
+As to the latter half of the paragraph, I have to confess a doubt
+whether it has any definite meaning. But I imagine that the Duke is
+alluding to my assertion that the law of gravitation is nowise
+"suspended" or "defied" when a man lifts his arm; but that, under such
+circumstances, part of the store of energy in the universe operates on
+the arm at a mechanical advantage as against the operation of another
+part. I was simple enough to think that no one who had as much
+knowledge of physiology as is to be found in an elementary primer, or
+who had ever heard of the greatest physical generalisation of modern
+times--the doctrine of the conservation of energy--would dream of
+doubting my statement; and I was further simple enough to think that
+no one who lacked these qualifications would feel tempted to charge me
+with error. It appears that my simplicity is greater than my powers of
+imagination.
+
+The Duke of Argyll may not be aware of the fact, but it is
+nevertheless true, that when a man's arm is raised, in sequence to
+that state of consciousness we call a volition, the volition is not
+the immediate cause of the elevation of the arm. On the contrary, that
+operation is effected by a certain change of form, technically known
+as "contraction" in sundry masses of flesh, technically known as
+muscles, which are fixed to the bones of the shoulder in such a manner
+that, if these muscles contract, they must raise the arm. Now each of
+these muscles is a machine comparable, in a certain sense, to one of
+the donkey-engines of a steamship, but more complete, inasmuch as the
+source of its ability to change its form, or contract, lies within
+itself. Every time that, by contracting, the muscle does work, such as
+that involved in raising the arm, more or less of the material which
+it contains is used up, just as more or less of the fuel of a
+steam-engine is used up, when it does work. And I do not think there
+is a doubt in the mind of any competent physicist, or physiologist,
+that the work done in lifting the weight of the arm is the mechanical
+equivalent of a certain proportion of the energy set free by the
+molecular changes which take place in the muscle. It is further a
+tolerably well-based belief that this, and all other forms of energy,
+are mutually convertible; and, therefore, that they all come under
+that general law or statement of the order of facts, called the
+conservation of energy. And, as that certainly is an abstraction, so
+the view which the Duke of Argyll thinks so extremely absurd is really
+one of the commonplaces of physiology. But this Review is hardly an
+appropriate place for giving instruction in the elements of that
+science, and I content myself with recommending the Duke of Argyll to
+devote some study to Book II. chap. v. section 4 of my friend Dr.
+Foster's excellent text-book of Physiology (1st edition, 1877, p.
+321), which begins thus:--
+
+     Broadly speaking, the animal body is a machine for
+     converting potential into actual energy. The potential
+     energy is supplied by the food; this the metabolism of the
+     body converts into the actual energy of heat and mechanical
+     labour.
+
+There is no more difficult problem in the world than that of the
+relation of the state of consciousness, termed volition, to the
+mechanical work which frequently follows upon it. But no one can even
+comprehend the nature of the problem, who has not carefully studied
+the long series of modes of motion which, without a break, connect the
+energy which does that work with the general store of energy. The
+ultimate form of the problem is this: Have we any reason to believe
+that a feeling, or state of consciousness, is capable of directly
+affecting the motion of even the smallest conceivable molecule of
+matter? Is such a thing even conceivable? If we answer these questions
+in the negative, it follows that volition may be a sign, but cannot be
+a cause, of bodily motion. If we answer them in the affirmative, then
+states of consciousness become undistinguishable from material things;
+for it is the essential nature of matter to be the vehicle or
+substratum of mechanical energy.
+
+There is nothing new in all this. I have merely put into modern
+language the issue raised by Descartes more than two centuries ago.
+The philosophies of the Occasionalists, of Spinoza, of Malebranche, of
+modern idealism and modern materialism, have all grown out of the
+controversies which Cartesianism evoked. Of all this the
+pseudo-science of the present time appears to be unconscious;
+otherwise it would hardly content itself with "making het again" the
+pseudo-science of the past.
+
+In the course of these observations I have already had occasion to
+express my appreciation of the copious and perfervid eloquence which
+enriches the Duke of Argyll's pages. I am almost ashamed that a
+constitutional insensibility to the Sirenian charms of rhetoric has
+permitted me in wandering through these flowery meads, to be
+attracted, almost exclusively, to the bare places of fallacy and the
+stony grounds of deficient information, which are disguised, though
+not concealed, by these floral decorations. But, in his concluding
+sentences, the Duke soars into a Tyrt�an strain which roused even my
+dull soul.
+
+     It was high time, indeed, that some revolt should be raised
+     against that Reign of Terror which had come to be
+     established in the scientific world under the abuse of a
+     great name. Professor Huxley has not joined this revolt
+     openly, for as yet, indeed, it is only beginning to raise
+     its head. But more than once--and very lately--he has
+     uttered a warning voice against the shallow dogmatism that
+     has provoked it. The time is coming when that revolt will be
+     carried further. Higher interpretations will be established.
+     Unless I am much mistaken, they are already coming in sight
+     (p. 339).
+
+I have been living very much out of the world for the last two or
+three years, and when I read this denunciatory outburst, as of one
+filled with the spirit of prophecy, I said to myself, "Mercy upon us,
+what has happened? Can it be that X. and Y. (it would be wrong to
+mention the names of the vigorous young friends which occurred to me)
+are playing Danton and Robespierre; and that a guillotine is erected
+in the courtyard of Burlington House for the benefit of all
+anti-Darwinian Fellows of the Royal Society? Where are the secret
+conspirators against this tyranny, whom I am supposed to favour, and
+yet not have the courage to join openly? And to think of my poor
+oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, 'compelled to speak with bated
+breath' (p. 338) certainly for the first time in my thirty-odd years'
+acquaintance with him!" My alarm and horror at the supposition that
+while I had been fiddling (or at any rate physicking), my beloved Rome
+had been burning, in this fashion, may be imagined.
+
+I am sure the Duke of Argyll will be glad to hear that the anxiety he
+created was of extremely short duration. It is my privilege to have
+access to the best sources of information, and nobody in the
+scientific world can tell me anything about either the "Reign of
+Terror" or "the Revolt." In fact, the scientific world laughs most
+indecorously at the notion of the existence of either; and some are so
+lost to the sense of the scientific dignity, that they descend to the
+use of transatlantic slang, and call it a "bogus scare." As to my
+friend Mr. Herbert Spencer, I have every reason to know that, in the
+"Factors of Organic Evolution," he has said exactly what was in his
+mind, without any particular deference to the opinions of the person
+whom he is pleased to regard as his most dangerous critic and Devil's
+Advocate-General, and still less of any one else.
+
+I do not know whether the Duke of Argyll pictures himself as the
+Tallien of this imaginary revolt against a no less imaginary Reign of
+Terror. But if so, I most respectfully but firmly decline to join his
+forces. It is only a few weeks since I happened to read over again the
+first article which I ever wrote (now twenty-seven years ago) on the
+"Origin of Species," and I found nothing that I wished to modify in
+the opinions that are there expressed, though the subsequent vast
+accumulation of evidence in favour of Mr. Darwin's views would give me
+much to add. As is the case with all new doctrines, so with that of
+Evolution, the enthusiasm of advocates has sometimes tended to
+degenerate into fanaticism; and mere speculation has, at times,
+threatened to shoot beyond its legitimate bounds. I have occasionally
+thought it wise to warn the more adventurous spirits among us against
+these dangers, in sufficiently plain language; and I have sometimes
+jestingly said that I expected, if I lived long enough, to be looked
+on as a reactionary by some of my more ardent friends. But nothing
+short of midsummer madness can account for the fiction that I am
+waiting till it is safe to join openly a revolt, hatched by some
+person or persons unknown, against an intellectual movement with which
+I am in the most entire and hearty sympathy. It is a great many years
+since, at the outset of my career, I had to think seriously what life
+had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the
+chief good, for me, was freedom to learn, think, and say what I
+pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction, and have
+availed myself of the "rara temporum felicitas ubi sentire qu� velis,
+et qu� sentias dicere licet," which is now enjoyable, to the best of
+my ability; and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I
+should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the
+results of the line of action I have adopted.
+
+My career is at an end. I have
+
+    Warmed both hands before the fire of life;
+
+and nothing is left me, before I depart, but to help, or at any rate
+to abstain from hindering, the younger generation of men of science in
+doing better service to the cause we have at heart than I have been
+able to render.
+
+And yet, forsooth, I am supposed to be waiting for the signal of
+"revolt," which some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise
+before I dare express my real opinions concerning questions about
+which we older men had to fight, in the teeth of fierce public
+opposition and obloquy--of something which might almost justify even
+the grandiloquent epithet of a Reign of Terror--before our excellent
+successors had left school.
+
+It would appear that the spirit of pseudo-science has impregnated even
+the imagination of the Duke of Argyll. The scientific imagination
+always restrains itself within the limits of probability.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [20] _Nineteenth Century_, March, 1887.
+
+     [21] The Duke of Argyll speaks of the recent date of the
+          demonstration of the fallacy of the doctrine in
+          question. "Recent" is a relative term, but I may
+          mention that the question is fully discussed in my book
+          on _Hume_; which, if I may believe my publishers, has
+          been read by a good many people since it appeared in
+          1879. Moreover, I observe, from a note at page 89 of
+          _The Reign of Law_, a work to which I shall have
+          occasion to advert by and by, that the Duke of Argyll
+          draws attention to the circumstance that, so long ago
+          as 1866, the views which I hold on this subject were
+          well known. The Duke, in fact, writing about this time,
+          says, after quoting a phrase of mine: "The question of
+          miracles seems now to be admitted on all hands to be
+          simply a question of evidence." In science, we think
+          that a teacher who ignores views which have been
+          discussed _coram populo_ for twenty years, is hardly up
+          to the mark.
+
+     [22] See also vol. i. p. 460. In the ninth edition (1853),
+          published twenty-three years after the first. Lyell
+          deprives even the most careless reader of any excuse
+          for misunderstanding him: "So in regard to subterranean
+          movements, the theory of the perpetual uniformity of
+          the force which they exert on the earth-crust is quite
+          consistent with the admission of their alternate
+          development and suspension for indefinite periods
+          within limited geographical areas" (p. 187).
+
+     [23] A great many years ago (Presidential Address to the
+          Geological Society, 1869) I ventured to indicate that
+          which seemed to me to be the weak point, not in the
+          fundamental principles of uniformitarianism, but in
+          uniformitarianism as taught by Lyell. It lay, to my
+          mind, in the refusal by Hutton, and in a less degree by
+          Lyell, to look beyond the limits of the time recorded
+          by the stratified rocks. I said: "This attempt to
+          limit, at a particular point, the progress of inductive
+          and deductive reasoning from the things which are to
+          the things which were--this faithlessness to its own
+          logic, seems to me to have cost uniformitarianism the
+          place as the permanent form of geological speculation
+          which it might otherwise have held" (_Lay Sermons_, p.
+          260). The context shows that "uniformitarianism" here
+          means that doctrine, as limited in application by
+          Hutton and Lyell, and that what I mean by
+          "evolutionism" is consistent and thorough-going
+          uniformitarianism.
+
+     [24] _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i. p. 670.
+          New edition, 1847.
+
+     [25] At Glasgow in 1856.
+
+     [26] _Optics_, query 31.
+
+     [27] The author recognises this in his _Explanations_.
+
+
+
+
+IV: AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY
+
+[1887]
+
+
+If there is any truth in the old adage that a burnt child dreads the
+fire, I ought to be very loath to touch a sermon, while the memory of
+what befell me on a recent occasion, possibly not yet forgotten by the
+readers of the _Nineteenth Century_, is uneffaced. But I suppose that
+even the distinguished censor of that unheard-of audacity to which not
+even the newspaper report of a sermon is sacred, can hardly regard a
+man of science as either indelicate or presumptuous, if he ventures to
+offer some comments upon three discourses, specially addressed to the
+great assemblage of men of science which recently gathered at
+Manchester, by three bishops of the State Church. On my return to
+England not long ago, I found a pamphlet[28] containing a version,
+which I presume to be authorised, of these sermons, among the huge
+mass of letters and papers which had accumulated during two months'
+absence; and I have read them not only with attentive interest, but
+with a feeling of satisfaction which is quite new to me as a result of
+hearing, or reading, sermons. These excellent discourses, in fact,
+appear to me to signalise a new departure in the course adopted by
+theology towards science, and to indicate the possibility of bringing
+about an honourable _modus vivendi_ between the two. How far the three
+bishops speak as accredited representatives of the Church is a
+question to be considered by and by. Most assuredly, I am not
+authorised to represent any one but myself. But I suppose that there
+must be a good many people in the Church of the bishops' way of
+thinking; and I have reason to believe that, in the ranks of science,
+there are a good many persons who, more or less, share my views. And
+it is to these sensible people on both sides, as the bishops and I
+must needs think those who agree with us, that my present observations
+are addressed. They will probably be astonished to learn how
+insignificant, in principle, their differences are.
+
+It is impossible to read the discourses of the three prelates without
+being impressed by the knowledge which they display, and by the spirit
+of equity, I might say of generosity, towards science which pervades
+them. There is no trace of that tacit or open assumption that the
+rejection of theological dogmas, on scientific grounds, is due to
+moral perversity, which is the ordinary note of ecclesiastical
+homilies on this subject, and which makes them look so supremely silly
+to men whose lives have been spent in wrestling with these questions.
+There is no attempt to hide away real stumbling-blocks under
+rhetorical stucco; no resort to the _tu quoque_ device of setting
+scientific blunders against theological errors; no suggestion that an
+honest man may keep contradictory beliefs in separate pockets of his
+brain; no question that the method of scientific investigation is
+valid, whatever the results to which it may lead; and that the search
+after truth, and truth only, ennobles the searcher and leaves no doubt
+that his life, at any rate, is worth living. The Bishop of Carlisle
+declares himself pledged to the belief that "the advancement of
+science, the progress of human knowledge, is in itself a worthy aim of
+the greatest effort of the greatest minds."
+
+How often was it my fate, a quarter of a century ago, to see the whole
+artillery of the pulpit brought to bear upon the doctrine of evolution
+and its supporters! Any one unaccustomed to the amenities of
+ecclesiastical controversy would have thought we were too wicked to be
+permitted to live. But let us hear the Bishop of Bedford. After a
+perfectly frank statement of the doctrine of evolution and some of
+its obvious consequences, that learned prelate pleads, with all
+earnestness, against
+
+     a hasty denunciation of what _may_ be proved to have at
+     least some elements of truth in it, a contemptuous rejection
+     of theories which we _may_ some day learn to accept as
+     freely and with as little sense of inconsistency with God's
+     word as we now accept the theory of the earth's motion round
+     the sun, or the long duration of the geological epochs (p.
+     28).
+
+I do not see that the most convinced evolutionist could ask any one,
+whether cleric or layman, to say more than this; in fact, I do not
+think that any one has a right to say more, with respect to any
+question about which two opinions can he held, than that his mind is
+perfectly open to the force of evidence.
+
+There is another portion of the Bishop of Bedford's sermon which I
+think will be warmly appreciated by all honest and clear-headed men.
+He repudiates the views of those who say that theology and science
+
+     occupy wholly different spheres, and need in no way
+     intermeddle with each other. They revolve, as it were, in
+     different planes, and so never meet. Thus we may pursue
+     scientific studies with the utmost freedom and, at the same
+     time, may pay the most reverent regard to theology, having
+     no fears of collision, because allowing no points of contact
+     (p. 29).
+
+Surely every unsophisticated mind will heartily concur with the
+Bishop's remark upon this convenient refuge for the descendants of
+Mr. Facing-both-ways. "I have never been able to understand this
+position though I have often seen it assumed." Nor can any demurrer be
+sustained when the Bishop proceeds to point out that there are, and
+must be, various points of contact between theological and natural
+science, and therefore that it is foolish to ignore or deny the
+existence of as many dangers of collision.
+
+Finally, the Bishop of Manchester freely admits the force of the
+objections which have been raised, on scientific grounds, to prayer,
+and attempts to turn them by arguing that the proper objects of prayer
+are not physical but spiritual. He tells us that natural accidents and
+moral misfortunes are not to be taken for moral judgments of God; he
+admits the propriety of the application of scientific methods to the
+investigation of the origin and growth of religions; and he is as
+ready to recognise the process of evolution there, as in the physical
+world. Mark the following striking passage:--
+
+     And how utterly all the common objections to Divine
+     revelation vanish away when they are set in the light of
+     this theory of a spiritual progression. Are we reminded that
+     there prevailed, in those earlier days, views of the nature
+     of God and man, of human life and Divine Providence, which
+     we now find to be untenable? _That_, we answer, is precisely
+     what the theory of development presupposes. If early views
+     of religion and morality had not been imperfect, where had
+     been the development? If symbolical visions and mythical
+     creations had found no place in the early Oriental
+     expression of Divine truth, where had been the development?
+     The sufficient answer to ninety-nine out of a hundred of the
+     ordinary objections to the Bible, as the record of a divine
+     education of our race, is asked in that one
+     word--development. And to what are we indebted for that
+     potent word, which, as with the wand of a magician, has at
+     the same moment so completely transformed our knowledge and
+     dispelled our difficulties? To modern science, resolutely
+     pursuing its search for truth in spite of popular obloquy
+     and--alas! that one should have to say it--in spite too
+     often of theological denunciation (p. 53).
+
+Apart from its general importance, I read this remarkable statement
+with the more pleasure, since, however imperfectly I may have
+endeavoured to illustrate the evolution of theology in a paper
+published in the _Nineteenth Century_ last year,[29] it seems to me
+that in principle, at any rate, I may hereafter claim high theological
+sanction for the views there set forth.
+
+If theologians are henceforward prepared to recognise the authority of
+secular science in the manner and to the extent indicated in the
+Manchester trilogy; if the distinguished prelates who offer these
+terms are really plenipotentiaries, then, so far as I may presume to
+speak on such a matter, there will be no difficulty about concluding a
+perpetual treaty of peace, and indeed of alliance, between the high
+contracting powers, whose history has hitherto been little more than a
+record of continual warfare. But if the great Chancellor's maxim, "Do
+ut des," is to form the basis of negotiation, I am afraid that
+secular science will be ruined; for it seems to me that theology,
+under the generous impulse of a sudden conversion, has given all that
+she hath; and indeed, on one point, has surrendered more than can
+reasonably be asked.
+
+I suppose I must be prepared to face the reproach which attaches to
+those who criticise a gift, if I venture to observe that I do not
+think that the Bishop of Manchester need have been so much alarmed, as
+he evidently has been, by the objections which have often been raised
+to prayer, on the ground that a belief in the efficacy of prayer is
+inconsistent with a belief in the constancy of the order of nature.
+
+The Bishop appears to admit that there is an antagonism between the
+"regular economy of nature" and the "regular economy of prayer" (p.
+39), and that "prayers for the interruption of God's natural order"
+are of "doubtful validity" (p. 42). It appears to me that the Bishop's
+difficulty simply adds another example to those which I have several
+times insisted upon in the pages of this Review and elsewhere, of the
+mischief which has been done, and is being done, by a mistaken
+apprehension of the real meaning of "natural order" and "law of
+nature."
+
+May I, therefore, be permitted to repeat, once more, that the
+statements denoted by these terms have no greater value or cogency
+than such as may attach to generalisations from experience of the
+past, and to expectations for the future based upon that experience?
+Nobody can presume to say what the order of nature must be; all that
+the widest experience (even if it extended over all past time and
+through all space) that events had happened in a certain way could
+justify, would be a proportionally strong expectation that events will
+go on happening, and the demand for a proportional strength of
+evidence in favour of any assertion that they had happened otherwise.
+
+It is this weighty consideration, the truth of which every one who is
+capable of logical thought must surely admit, which knocks the bottom
+out of all _� priori_ objections either to ordinary "miracles" or to
+the efficacy of prayer, in so far as the latter implies the miraculous
+intervention of a higher power. No one is entitled to say _� priori_
+that any given so-called miraculous event is impossible; and no one is
+entitled to say _� priori_ that prayer for some change in the ordinary
+course of nature cannot possibly avail.
+
+The supposition that there is any inconsistency between the acceptance
+of the constancy of natural order and a belief in the efficacy of
+prayer, is the more unaccountable as it is obviously contradicted by
+analogies furnished by everyday experience. The belief in the efficacy
+of prayer depends upon the assumption that there is somebody,
+somewhere, who is strong enough to deal with the earth and its
+contents as men deal with the things and events which they are strong
+enough to modify or control; and who is capable of being moved by
+appeals such as men make to one another. This belief does not even
+involve theism; for our earth is an insignificant particle of the
+solar system, while the solar system is hardly worth speaking of in
+relation to the All; and, for anything that can be proved to the
+contrary, there may be beings endowed with full powers over our
+system, yet, practically, as insignificant as ourselves in relation to
+the universe. If any one pleases, therefore, to give unrestrained
+liberty to his fancy, he may plead analogy in favour of the dream that
+there may be, somewhere, a finite being, or beings, who can play with
+the solar system as a child plays with a toy; and that such being may
+be willing to do anything which he is properly supplicated to do. For
+we are not justified in saying that it is impossible for beings having
+the nature of men, only vastly more powerful, to exist; and if they do
+exist, they may act as and when we ask them to do so, just as our
+brother men act. As a matter of fact, the great mass of the human race
+has believed, and still believes, in such beings, under the various
+names of fairies, gnomes, angels, and demons. Certainly I do not lack
+faith in the constancy of natural order. But I am not less convinced
+that if I were to ask the Bishop of Manchester to do me a kindness
+which lay within his power, he would do it. And I am unable to see
+that his action on my request involves any violation of the order of
+nature. On the contrary, as I have not the honour to know the Bishop
+personally, my action would be based upon my faith, in that "law of
+nature," or generalisation from experience, which tells me that, as a
+rule, men who occupy the Bishop's position are kindly and courteous.
+How is the case altered if my request is preferred to some imaginary
+superior being, or to the Most High being, who, by the supposition, is
+able to arrest disease, or make the sun stand still in the heavens,
+just as easily as I can stop my watch, or make it indicate any hour
+that pleases me?
+
+I repeat that it is not upon any _� priori_ considerations that
+objections, either to the supposed efficacy of prayer in modifying the
+course of events, or to the supposed occurrence of miracles, can be
+scientifically based. The real objection, and, to my mind, the fatal
+objection, to both these suppositions, is the inadequacy of the
+evidence to prove any given case of such occurrences which has been
+adduced. It is a canon of common sense, to say nothing of science,
+that the more improbable a supposed occurrence, the more cogent ought
+to be the evidence in its favour. I have looked somewhat carefully
+into the subject, and I am unable to find in the records of any
+miraculous event evidence which even approximates to the fulfilment of
+this requirement.
+
+But, in the case of prayer, the Bishop points out a most just and
+necessary distinction between its effect on the course of nature,
+outside ourselves, and its effect within the region of the
+supplicator's mind.
+
+It is a "law of nature," verifiable by everyday experience, that our
+already formed convictions, our strong desires, our intent occupation
+with particular ideas, modify our mental operations to a most
+marvellous extent, and produce enduring changes in the direction and
+in the intensity of our intellectual and moral activities. Men can
+intoxicate themselves with ideas as effectually as with alcohol or
+with bang, and produce, by dint of intense thinking, mental conditions
+hardly distinguishable from monomania. Demoniac possession is
+mythical; but the faculty of being possessed, more or less completely,
+by an idea is probably the fundamental condition of what is called
+genius, whether it show itself in the saint, the artist, or the man of
+science. One calls it faith, another calls it inspiration, a third
+calls it insight; but the "intending of the mind," to borrow Newton's
+well-known phrase, the concentration of all the rays of intellectual
+energy on some one point, until it glows and colours the whole cast of
+thought with its peculiar light, is common to all.
+
+I take it that the Bishop of Manchester has psychological science with
+him when he insists upon the subjective efficacy of prayer in faith,
+and on the seemingly miraculous effects which such "intending of the
+mind" upon religious and moral ideals may have upon character and
+happiness. Scientific faith, at present, takes it no further than the
+prayer which Ajax offered; but that petition is continually granted.
+
+Whatever points of detail may yet remain open for discussion, however,
+I repeat the opinion I have already expressed, that the Manchester
+sermons concede all that science, has an indisputable right, or any
+pressing need, to ask, and that not grudgingly but generously; and, if
+the three bishops of 1887 carry the Church with them, I think they
+will have as good title to the permanent gratitude of posterity as the
+famous seven who went to the Tower in defence of the Church two
+hundred years ago.
+
+Will their brethren follow their just and prudent guidance? I have no
+such acquaintance with the currents of ecclesiastical opinion as would
+justify me in even hazarding a guess on such a difficult topic. But
+some recent omens are hardly favourable. There seems to be an
+impression abroad--I do not desire to give any countenance to it--that
+I am fond of reading sermons. From time to time, unknown
+correspondents--some apparently animated by the charitable desire to
+promote my conversion, and others unmistakably anxious to spur me to
+the expression of wrathful antagonism--favour me with reports or
+copies of such productions.
+
+I found one of the latter category among the accumulated arrears to
+which I have already referred.
+
+It is a full, and apparently accurate, report of a discourse by a
+person of no less ecclesiastical rank than the three authors of the
+sermons I have hitherto been considering; but who he is, and where or
+when the sermon was preached, are secrets which wild horses shall not
+tear from me, lest I fall again under high censure for attacking a
+clergyman. Only if the editor of this Review thinks it his duty to
+have independent evidence that the sermon has a real existence, will
+I, in the strictest confidence, communicate it to him.
+
+The preacher, in this case, is of a very different mind from the three
+bishops--and this mind is different in quality, different in spirit,
+and different in contents. He discourses on the _� priori_ objections
+to miracles, apparently without being aware, in spite of all the
+discussions of the last seven or eight years, that he is doing battle
+with a shadow.
+
+I trust I do not misrepresent the Bishop of Manchester in saying that
+the essence of his remarkable discourse is the insistence upon the
+"supreme importance of the purely spiritual in our faith," and of the
+relative, if not absolute, insignificance of aught else. He obviously
+perceives the bearing of his arguments against the alterability of
+the course of outward nature by prayer, on the question of miracles in
+general; for he is careful to say that "the possibility of miracles,
+of a rare and unusual transcendence of the world order is not here in
+question" (p. 38). It may be permitted me to suppose, however, that,
+if miracles were in question, the speaker who warns us "that we must
+look for the heart of the absolute religion in that part of it which
+prescribes our moral and religious relations" (p. 46) would not be
+disposed to advise those who had found the heart of Christianity to
+take much thought about its miraculous integument.
+
+My anonymous sermon will have nothing to do with such notions as
+these, and its preacher is not too polite, to say nothing of
+charitable, towards those who entertain them.
+
+     Scientific men, therefore, are perfectly right in asserting
+     that Christianity rests on miracles. If miracles never
+     happened, Christianity, in any sense which is not a mockery,
+     which does not make the term of none effect, has no reality.
+     I dwell on this because there is now an effort making to get
+     up a non-miraculous, invertebrate Christianity, which may
+     escape the ban of science. And I would warn you very
+     distinctly against this new contrivance. Christianity is
+     essentially miraculous, and falls to the ground if miracles
+     be impossible.
+
+Well, warning for warning. I venture to warn this preacher and those
+who, with him, persist in identifying Christianity with the
+miraculous, that such forms of Christianity are not only doomed to
+fall to the ground; but that, within the last half century, they have
+been driving that way with continually accelerated velocity.
+
+The so-called religious world is given to a strange delusion. It
+fondly imagines that it possesses the monopoly of serious and constant
+reflection upon the terrible problems of existence; and that those who
+cannot accept its shibboleths are either mere Gallios, caring for none
+of these things, or libertines desiring to escape from the restraints
+of morality. It does not appear to have entered the imaginations of
+these people that, outside their pale and firmly resolved never to
+enter it, there are thousands of men, certainly not their inferiors in
+character, capacity, or knowledge of the questions at issue, who
+estimate those purely spiritual elements of the Christian faith of
+which the Bishop of Manchester speaks as highly as the Bishop does;
+but who will have nothing to do with the Christian Churches, because
+in their apprehension and for them, the profession of belief in the
+miraculous, on the evidence offered would be simply immoral.
+
+So far as my experience goes, men of science are neither better nor
+worse than the rest of the world. Occupation with the endlessly great
+parts of the universe does not necessarily involve greatness of
+character, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always
+produce humility. We have our full share of original sin; need,
+greed, and vainglory beset us as they do other mortals; and our
+progress is, for the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the
+resultant of opposite divergencies from the straight path. But, for
+all that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit of science
+unquestionably bestows. It keeps the estimate of the value of evidence
+up to the proper mark; and we are constantly receiving lessons, and
+sometimes very sharp ones, on the nature of proof. Men of science will
+always act up to their standard of veracity, when mankind in general
+leave off sinning; but that standard appears to me to be higher among
+them than in any other class of the community.
+
+I do not know any body of scientific men who could be got to listen
+without the strongest expressions of disgusted repudiation to the
+exposition of a pretended scientific discovery, which had no better
+evidence to show for itself than the story of the devils entering a
+herd of swine, or of the fig-tree that was blasted for bearing no figs
+when "it was not the season of figs." Whether such events are possible
+or impossible, no man can say; but scientific ethics can and does
+declare that the profession of belief in them, on the evidence of
+documents of unknown date and of unknown authorship, is immoral.
+Theological apologists who insist that morality will vanish if their
+dogmas are exploded, would do well to consider the fact that, in the
+matter of intellectual veracity, science is already a long way ahead
+of the Churches; and that, in this particular, it is exerting an
+educational influence on mankind of which the Churches have shown
+themselves utterly incapable.
+
+Undoubtedly that varying compound of some of the best and some of the
+worst elements of Paganism and Judaism, moulded in practice by the
+innate character of certain people of the Western world, which, since
+the second century, has assumed to itself the title of orthodox
+Christianity, "rests on miracles" and falls to the ground, not "if
+miracles be impossible," but if those to which it is committed prove
+themselves unable to fulfil the conditions of honest belief. That this
+Christianity is doomed to fall is, to my mind, beyond a doubt; but its
+fall will be neither sudden nor speedy. The Church, with all the aid
+lent it by the secular arm, took many centuries to extirpate the open
+practice of pagan idolatry within its own fold; and those who have
+travelled in southern Europe will be aware that it has not extirpated
+the essence of such idolatry even yet. _Mutato nomine_, it is probable
+that there is as much sheer fetichism among the Roman populace now as
+there was eighteen hundred years ago; and if Marcus Antonius could
+descend from his horse and ascend the steps of the Ara Coeli church
+about Twelfth Day, the only thing that need strike him would be the
+extremely contemptible character of the modern idols as works of art.
+
+Science will certainly neither ask for, nor receive, the aid of the
+secular arm. It will trust to the much better and more powerful help
+of that education in scientific truth and in the morals of assent,
+which is rendered as indispensable, as it is inevitable, by the
+permeation of practical life with the products and ideas of science.
+But no one who considers the present state of even the most developed
+countries can doubt that the scientific light that has come into the
+world will have to shine in the midst of darkness for a long time. The
+urban populations, driven into contact with science by trade and
+manufacture, will more and more receive it, while the _pagani_ will
+lag behind. Let us hope that no Julian may arise among them to head a
+forlorn hope against the inevitable. Whatever happens, science may
+bide her time in patience and in confidence.
+
+But to return to my "Anonymous." I am afraid that if he represents any
+great party in the Church, the spirit of justice and reasonableness
+which animates the three bishops has as slender a chance of being
+imitated, on a large scale, as their common sense and their courtesy.
+For, not contented with misrepresenting science on its speculative
+side, "Anonymous" attacks its morality.
+
+     For two whole years, investigations and conclusions which
+     would upset the theories of Darwin on the formation of coral
+     islands were actually suppressed, and that by the advice
+     even of those who accepted them, _for fear of upsetting the
+     faith and disturbing the judgment formed by the multitude
+     on the scientific character--the infallibility--of the great
+     master_!
+
+So far as I know anything about the matters which are here referred
+to, the part of this passage which I have italicised is absolutely
+untrue. I believe that I am intimately acquainted with all Mr.
+Darwin's immediate scientific friends: and I say that no one of them,
+nor any other man of science known to me, ever could, or would, have
+given such advice to any one--if for no other reason than that, with
+the example of the most candid and patient listener to objections that
+ever lived fresh in their memories, they could not so grossly have at
+once violated their highest duty and dishonoured their friend.
+
+The charge thus brought by "Anonymous" affects the honour and the
+probity of men of science; if it is true, we have forfeited all claim
+to the confidence of the general public. In my belief it is utterly
+false, and its real effect will be to discredit those who are
+responsible for it. As is the way with slanders, it has grown by
+repetition. "Anonymous" is responsible for the peculiarly offensive
+form which it has taken in his hands; but he is not responsible for
+originating it. He has evidently been inspired by an article entitled
+"A Great Lesson," published in the September number of this Review.
+Truly it is "a great lesson," but not quite in the sense intended by
+the giver thereof.
+
+In the course of his doubtless well-meant admonitions, the Duke of
+Argyll commits himself to a greater number of statements which are
+demonstrably incorrect and which any one who ventured to write upon
+the subject ought to have known to be incorrect, than I have ever seen
+gathered together in so small a space.
+
+I submit a gathering from the rich store for the appreciation of the
+public.
+
+First:--
+
+     Mr. Murray's new explanation of the structure of coral-reefs
+     and islands was communicated to the Royal Society of
+     Edinburgh in 1880, and supported with such a weight of facts
+     and such a close texture of reasoning, that no serious reply
+     has ever been attempted (p. 305).
+
+"No serious reply has ever been attempted"! I suppose that the Duke of
+Argyll may have heard of Professor Dana, whose years of labour devoted
+to corals and coral-reefs when he was naturalist of the American
+expedition under Commodore Wilkes, more than forty years ago, have
+ever since caused him to be recognised as an authority of the first
+rank on such subjects. Now does his Grace know, or does he not know,
+that, in the year 1885, Professor Dana published an elaborate paper
+"On the Origin of Coral-Reefs and Islands," in which, after referring
+to a Presidential Address by the Director of the Geological Survey of
+Great Britain and Ireland delivered in 1883, in which special
+attention is directed to Mr. Murray's views Professor Dana says:--
+
+     The existing state of doubt on the question has led the
+     writer to reconsider the earlier and later facts, and in the
+     following pages he gives his results.
+
+Professor Dana then devotes many pages of his very "serious reply" to
+a most admirable and weighty criticism of the objections which have at
+various times been raised to Mr. Darwin's doctrine, by Professor
+Semper, by Dr. Rein, and finally by Mr. Murray, and he states his
+final judgment as follows:--
+
+     With the theory of abrasion and solution incompetent, all
+     the hypotheses of objectors to Darwin's theory are alike
+     weak; for all have made these processes their chief
+     reliance, whether appealing to a calcareous, or a volcanic,
+     or a mountain-peak basement for the structure. The
+     subsidence which the Darwinian theory requires has not been
+     opposed by the mention of any fact at variance with it, nor
+     by setting aside Darwin's arguments in its favour; and it
+     has found new support in the facts from the "Challenger's"
+     soundings off Tahiti, that had been put in array against it,
+     and strong corroboration in the facts from the West Indies.
+
+     Darwin's theory, therefore, remains as the theory that
+     accounts for the origin of reefs and islands.[30]
+
+Be it understood that I express no opinion on the controverted points.
+I doubt if there are ten living men who, having a practical knowledge
+of what a coral-reef is, have endeavoured to master the very difficult
+biological and geological problems involved in their study. I happen
+to have spent the best part of three years among coral-reefs and to
+have made that attempt; and, when Mr. Murray's work appeared, I said
+to myself that until I had two or three months to give to the renewed
+study of the subject in all its bearings, I must be content to remain
+in a condition of suspended judgment. In the meanwhile, the man who
+would be voted by common acclamation as the most competent person now
+living to act as umpire, has delivered the verdict I have quoted; and,
+to go no further, has fully justified the hesitation I and others may
+have felt about expressing an opinion. Under these circumstances, it
+seems to me to require a good deal of courage to say "no serious reply
+has ever been attempted"; and to chide the men of science, in lofty
+tones, for their "reluctance to admit an error" which is not admitted;
+and for their "slow and sulky acquiescence" in a conclusion which they
+have the gravest warranty for suspecting.
+
+Second:--
+
+     Darwin himself had lived to hear of the new solution and,
+     with that splendid candour which was eminent in him his
+     mind, though now grown old in his own early convictions, was
+     at least ready to entertain it, and to confess that serious
+     doubts had been awakened as to the truth of his famous
+     theory (p. 305).
+
+I wish that Darwin's splendid candour could be conveyed by some
+description of spiritual "microbe" to those who write about him. I am
+not aware that Mr. Darwin ever entertained "serious doubts as to the
+truth of his famous theory"; and there is tolerably good evidence to
+the contrary. The second edition of his work, published in 1876,
+proves that he entertained no such doubts then; a letter to Professor
+Semper, whose objections, in some respects, forestalled those of Mr.
+Murray, dated October 2, 1879, expresses his continued adherence to
+the opinion "that the atolls and barrier reefs in the middle of the
+Pacific and Indian Oceans indicate subsidence"; and the letter of my
+friend Professor Judd, printed at the end of this article (which I had
+perhaps better say Professor Judd had not seen) will prove that this
+opinion remained unaltered to the end of his life.
+
+Third:--
+
+     ... Darwin's theory is a dream. It is not only unsound, but
+     it is in many respects the reverse of truth. With all his
+     conscientiousness, with all his caution, with all his powers
+     of observation, Darwin in this matter fell into errors as
+     profound as the abysses of the Pacific (p. 301).
+
+Really? It seems to me that, under the circumstances, it is pretty
+clear that these lines exhibit a lack of the qualities justly ascribed
+to Mr. Darwin, which plunges their author into a much deeper abyss,
+and one from which there is no hope of emergence.
+
+Fourth:--
+
+     All the acclamations with which it was received were as the
+     shouts of an ignorant mob (p. 301).
+
+But surely it should be added that the Coryph�us of this ignorant
+mob, the fugleman of the shouts, was one of the most accomplished
+naturalists and geologists now living--the American Dana--who, after
+years of independent study extending over numerous reefs in the
+Pacific, gave his hearty assent to Darwin's views, and after all that
+had been said, deliberately reaffirmed that assent in the year 1885.
+
+Fifth:--
+
+     The overthrow of Darwin's speculation is only beginning to
+     be known. It has been whispered for some time. The cherished
+     dogma has been dropping very slowly out of sight (p. 301).
+
+Darwin's speculation may be right or wrong, but I submit that that
+which has not happened cannot even begin to be known, except by those
+who have miraculous gifts to which we poor scientific people do not
+aspire. The overthrow of Darwin's views may have been whispered by
+those who hoped for it; and they were perhaps wise in not raising
+their voices above a whisper. Incorrect statements, if made too
+loudly, are apt to bring about unpleasant consequences.
+
+Sixth:--
+
+Mr. Murray's views, published in 1880, are said to have met with "slow
+and sulky acquiescence" (p. 305). I have proved that they cannot be
+said to have met with general acquiescence of any sort, whether quick
+and cheerful, or slow and sulky; and if this assertion is meant to
+convey the impression that Mr. Murray's views have been ignored, that
+there has been a conspiracy of silence against them, it is utterly
+contrary to notorious fact.
+
+Professor Geikie's well-known "Textbook of Geology" was published in
+1882, and at pages 457-459 of that work there is a careful exposition
+of Mr. Murray's views. Moreover Professor Geikie has specially
+advocated them on other occasions,[31] notably in a long article on
+"The Origin of Coral-Reefs," published in two numbers of "Nature" for
+1883, and in a Presidential Address delivered in the same year. If, in
+so short a time after the publication of his views, Mr. Murray could
+boast of a convert, so distinguished and influential as the Director
+of the Geological Survey, it seems to me that this wonderful
+_conspiration de silence_ (which has about as much real existence as
+the Duke of Argyll's other bogie, "The Reign of Terror ") must have
+_ipso facto_ collapsed. I wish that, when I was a young man, my
+endeavours to upset some prevalent errors had met with as speedy and
+effectual backing.
+
+Seventh:--
+
+     ... Mr. John Murray was strongly advised against the
+     publication of his views in derogation of Darwin's
+     long-accepted theory of the coral islands, and was actually
+     induced to delay it for two years. Yet the late Sir Wyville
+     Thomson, who was at the head of the naturalists of the
+     "Challenger" expedition, was himself convinced by Mr.
+     Murray's reasoning (p. 307).
+
+Clearly, then, it could not be Mr. Murray's official chief who gave
+him this advice. Who was it? And what was the exact nature of the
+advice given? Until we have some precise information on this head, I
+shall take leave to doubt whether this statement is more accurate than
+those which I have previously cited.
+
+Whether such advice was wise or foolish, just or immoral, depends
+entirely on the motive of the person who gave it. If he meant to
+suggest to Mr. Murray that it might be wise for a young and
+comparatively unknown man to walk warily, when he proposed to attack a
+generalisation based on many years' labour of one undoubtedly
+competent person, and fortified by the independent results of the many
+years' labour of another undoubtedly competent person; and even, if
+necessary, to take two whole years in fortifying his position, I think
+that such advice would have been sagacious and kind. I suppose that
+there are few working men of science who have not kept their ideas to
+themselves, while gathering and sifting evidence, for a much longer
+period than two years.
+
+If, on the other hand, Mr. Murray was advised to delay the publication
+of his criticisms, simply to save Mr. Darwin's credit and to preserve
+some reputation for infallibility, which no one ever heard of, then I
+have no hesitation in declaring that his adviser was profoundly
+dishonest, as well as extremely foolish; and that, if he is a man of
+science, he has disgraced his calling.
+
+But, after all, this supposed scientific Achitophel has not yet made
+good the primary fact of his existence. Until the needful proof is
+forthcoming, I think I am justified in suspending my judgment as to
+whether he is much more than an anti-scientific myth. I leave it to
+the Duke of Argyll to judge of the extent of the obligation under
+which, for his own sake, he may lie to produce the evidence on which
+his aspersions of the honour of scientific men are based. I cannot
+pretend that we are seriously disturbed by charges which every one who
+is acquainted with the truth of the matter knows to be ridiculous; but
+mud has a habit of staining if it lies too long, and it is as well to
+have it brushed off as soon as may be.
+
+So much for the "Great Lesson." It is followed by a "Little Lesson,"
+apparently directed against my infallibility--a doctrine about which I
+should be inclined to paraphrase Wilkes's remark to George the Third,
+when he declared that he, at any rate, was not a Wilkite. But I really
+should be glad to think that there are people who need the warning,
+because then it will be obvious that this raking up of an old story
+cannot have been suggested by a mere fanatical desire to damage men
+of science. I can but rejoice, then, that these misguided enthusiasts,
+whose faith, in me has so far exceeded the bounds of reason, should be
+set right. But that "want of finish" in the matter of accuracy which
+so terribly mars the effect of the "Great Lesson," is no less
+conspicuous in the case of the "Little Lesson," and, instead of
+setting my too fervent disciples right, it will set them wrong.
+
+The Duke of Argyll, in telling the story of _Bathybius_, says that my
+mind was "caught by this new and grand generalisation of the physical
+basis of life." I never have been guilty of a reclamation about
+anything to my credit, and I do not mean to be; but if there is any
+blame going, I do not choose to be relegated to a subordinate place
+when I have a claim to the first. The responsibility for the first
+description and the naming of _Bathybius_ is mine and mine only. The
+paper on "Some Organisms living at great Depths in the Atlantic
+Ocean," in which I drew attention to this substance, is to be found by
+the curious in the eighth volume of the "Quarterly Journal of
+Microscopical Science," and was published in the year 1868. Whatever
+errors are contained in that paper are my own peculiar property; but
+neither at the meeting of the British Association in 1868, nor
+anywhere else, have I gone beyond what is there stated; except in so
+far that, at a long-subsequent meeting of the Association, being
+importuned about the subject, I ventured to express, somewhat
+emphatically, the wish that the thing was at the bottom of the sea.
+
+What is meant by my being caught by a generalisation about the
+physical basis of life I do not know; still less can I understand the
+assertion that _Bathybius_ was accepted because of its supposed
+harmony with Darwin's speculations. That which interested me in the
+matter was the apparent analogy of _Bathybius_ with other well-known
+forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia of the Myxomycetes and the
+Rhizopods. Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the
+matter; and if _Bathybius_ were brought up alive from the bottom of
+the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have the slightest bearing,
+that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations, or upon any of the
+disputed problems of biology. It would merely be one elementary
+organism the more added to the thousands already known.
+
+Up to this moment I was not aware of the universal favour with which
+_Bathybius_ was received.[32] Those simulators of an "ignorant mob"
+who, according to the Duke of Argyll, welcomed Darwin's theory of
+coral-reefs, made no demonstration in my favour, unless his Grace
+includes Sir Wyville Thomson, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Bessels, and
+Professor Haeckel under that head. On the contrary, a sagacious friend
+of mine, than whom there was no more competent judge, the late Mr.
+George Busk, was not to be converted; while, long before the
+"Challenger" work, Ehrenberg wrote to me very sceptically; and I fully
+expected that that eminent man would favour me with pretty sharp
+criticism. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards, and nothing from
+him, that I know of, appeared. When Sir Wyville Thomson wrote to me a
+brief account of the results obtained on board the "Challenger" I sent
+this statement to "Nature," in which journal it appeared the following
+week, without any further note or comment than was needful to explain
+the circumstances. In thus allowing judgment to go by default, I am
+afraid I showed a reckless and ungracious disregard for the feelings
+of the believers in my infallibility. No doubt I ought to have hedged
+and fenced and attenuated the effect of Sir Wyville Thomson's brief
+note in every possible way. Or perhaps I ought to have suppressed the
+note altogether, on the ground that it was a mere _ex parte_
+statement. My excuse is that, notwithstanding a large and abiding
+faith in human folly, I did not know then, any more than I know now,
+that there was anybody foolish enough to be unaware that the only
+people scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do
+nothing; or that anybody, for whose opinion I cared, would not rather
+see me commit ten blunders than try to hide one.
+
+Pending the production of further evidence, I hold that the existence
+of people who believe in the infallibility of men of science is as
+purely mythical as that of the evil counsellor who advised the
+withholding of the truth lest it should conflict with that belief.
+
+I venture to think, then, that the Duke of Argyll might have spared
+his "Little Lesson" as well as his "Great Lesson" with advantage. The
+paternal authority who whips the child for sins he has not committed
+does not strengthen his moral influence--rather excites contempt and
+repugnance. And if, as would seem from this and former monitory
+allocutions which have been addressed to us, the Duke aspires to the
+position of censor, or spiritual director, in relation to the men who
+are doing the work of physical science, he really must get up his
+facts better. There will be an end to all chance of our kissing the
+rod if his Grace goes wrong a third time. He must not say again that
+"no serious reply has been attempted" to a view which was discussed
+and repudiated, two years before, by one of the highest extant
+authorities on the subject; he must not say that Darwin accepted that
+which it can be proved he did not accept; he must not say that a
+doctrine has dropped into the abyss when it is quite obviously alive
+and kicking at the surface; he must not assimilate a man like
+Professor Dana to the components of an "ignorant mob"; he must not say
+that things are beginning to be known which are not known at all; he
+must not say that "slow and sulky acquiescence" has been given to that
+which cannot yet boast of general acquiescence of any kind; he must
+not suggest that a view which has been publicly advocated by the
+Director of the Geological Survey and no less publicly discussed by
+many other authoritative writers has been intentionally and
+systematically ignored; he must not ascribe ill motives for a course
+of action which is the only proper one; and finally, if any one but
+myself were interested, I should say that he had better not waste his
+time in raking up the errors of those whose lives have been occupied,
+not in talking about science, but in toiling, sometimes with success
+and sometimes with failure, to get some real work done.
+
+The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their
+readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge
+these inevitable lapses. The Duke of Argyll has now a splendid
+opportunity for proving to the world in which of these categories it
+is hereafter to rank him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DEAR PROFESSOR HUXLEY,--A short time before Mr. Darwin's death, I had
+a conversation with, him concerning the observations which had been
+made by Mr. Murray upon coral-reefs, and the speculations which had
+been founded upon those observations. I found that Mr. Darwin had very
+carefully considered the whole subject, and that while, on the one
+hand, he did not regard the actual facts recorded by Mr. Murray as
+absolutely inconsistent with his own theory of subsidence, on the
+other hand, he did not believe that they necessitated or supported the
+hypothesis advanced by Mr. Murray. Mr. Darwin's attitude, as I
+understood it, towards Mr. Murray's objections to the theory of
+subsidence was exactly similar to that maintained by him with respect
+to Professor Semper's criticism, which was of a very similar
+character; and his position with regard to the whole question was
+almost identical with that subsequently so clearly defined by
+Professor Dana in his well-known articles published in the "American
+Journal of Science" for 1885.
+
+It is difficult to imagine how any one, acquainted with the scientific
+literature of the last seven years, could possibly suggest that Mr.
+Murray's memoir published in 1880 had failed to secure a due amount of
+attention. Mr. Murray, by his position in the "Challenger" office,
+occupied an exceptionally favourable position for making his views
+widely known; and he had, moreover, the singular good fortune to
+secure from the first the advocacy of so able and brilliant a writer
+as Professor Archibald Geikie, who in a special discourse and in
+several treatises on geology and physical geology very strongly
+supported the new theory. It would be an endless task to attempt to
+give references to the various scientific journals which have
+discussed the subject, but I may add that every treatise on geology
+which has been published, since Mr. Murray's views were made known,
+has dealt with his observations at considerable length. This is true
+of Professor A.H. Green's "Physical Geology," published in 1882; of
+Professor Prestwich's "Geology, Chemical and Physical"; and of
+Professor James Geikie's "Outlines of Geology," published in 1886.
+Similar prominence is given to the subject in De Lapparent's "Trait�
+de G�ologie," published in 1885, and in Credner's "Elemente der
+Geologie," which has appeared during the present year. If this be a
+"conspiracy of silence," where, alas! can the geological speculator
+seek for fame?--Yours very truly, JOHN W. JUDD.
+
+_October_ 10, 1887.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [28] _The Advance of Science_. Three sermons preached in
+          Manchester Cathedral on Sunday, September 4, 1887,
+          during the meeting of the British Association for the
+          Advancement of Science, by the Bishop of Carlisle, the
+          Bishop of Bedford, and the Bishop of Manchester.
+
+     [29] Reprinted in Vol. IV. of this collection.
+
+     [30] _American Journal of Science_, 1885, p. 190.
+
+     [31] Professor Geikie, however, though a strong, is a fair
+          and candid advocate. He says of Darwin's theory, "That
+          it may be possibly true, in some instances, may be
+          readily granted." For Professor Geikie, then, it is not
+          yet over-thrown--still less a dream.
+
+     [32] I find, moreover, that I specially warned my readers
+          against hasty judgment. After stating the facts of
+          observation, I add, "I have, hitherto, said nothing
+          about their meaning, as, in an inquiry so difficult and
+          fraught with interest as this, it seems to me to be in
+          the highest degree important to keep the questions of
+          fact and the questions of interpretation well apart"
+          (p. 210).
+
+
+
+
+V: THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS
+
+[1889]
+
+
+Charles, or, more properly, Karl, King of the Franks, consecrated
+Roman Emperor in St. Peter's on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, and known to
+posterity as the Great (chiefly by his agglutinative Gallicised
+denomination, of Charlemagne), was a man great in all ways, physically
+and mentally. Within a couple of centuries after his death Charlemagne
+became the centre of innumerable legends; and the myth-making process
+does not seem to have been sensibly interfered with by the existence
+of sober and truthful histories of the Emperor and of the times which
+immediately preceded and followed his reign by a contemporary writer
+who occupied a high and confidential position in his court, and in
+that of his successor. This was one Eginhard, or Einhard, who appears
+to have been born about A.D. 770, and spent his youth at the court,
+being educated along with Charles's sons. There is excellent
+contemporary testimony not only to Eginhard's existence, but to his
+abilities, and to the place which he occupied in the circle of the
+intimate friends of the great ruler whose life he subsequently wrote.
+In fact, there is as good evidence of Eginhard's existence, of his
+official position, and of his being the author of the chief works
+attributed to him, as can reasonably be expected in the case of a man
+who lived more than a thousand years ago, and was neither a great king
+nor a great warrior. The works are--1. "The Life of the Emperor Karl."
+2. "The Annals of the Franks." 3. "Letters." 4. "The History of the
+Translation of the Blessed Martyrs of Christ, SS. Marcellinus and
+Petrus."
+
+It is to the last, as one of the most singular and interesting records
+of the period during which the Roman world passed into that of the
+Middle Ages, that I wish to direct attention.[33] It was written in
+the ninth century, somewhere, apparently, about the year 830, when
+Eginhard, ailing in health and weary of political life, had withdrawn
+to the monastery of Seligenstadt, of which he was the founder. A
+manuscript copy of the work, made in the tenth century, and once the
+property of the monastery of St. Bavon on the Scheldt, of which
+Eginhard was Abbot, is still extant, and there is no reason to believe
+that, in this copy, the original has been in any way interpolated or
+otherwise tampered with. The main features of the strange story
+contained in the "Historia Translationis" are set forth in the
+following pages, in which, in regard to all matters of importance, I
+shall adhere as closely as possible to Eginhard's own words.
+
+     While I was still at Court, busied with secular affairs, I
+     often thought of the leisure which I hoped one day to enjoy
+     in a solitary place, far away from the crowd, with which the
+     liberality of Prince Louis, whom I then served, had provided
+     me. This place is situated in that part of Germany which
+     lies between the Neckar and the Maine,[34] and is nowadays
+     called the Odenwald by those who live in and about it. And
+     here having built, according to my capacity and resources,
+     not only houses and permanent dwellings, but also a basilica
+     fitted for the performance of divine service and of no mean
+     style of construction, I began to think to what saint or
+     martyr I could best dedicate it. A good deal of time had
+     passed while my thoughts fluctuated about this matter, when
+     it happened that a certain deacon of the Roman Church, named
+     Deusdona, arrived at the Court for the purpose of seeking
+     the favour of the King in some affairs in which he was
+     interested. He remained some time; and then, having
+     transacted his business, he was about to return to Rome,
+     when one day, moved by courtesy to a stranger, we invited
+     him to a modest refection; and while talking of many things
+     at table, mention was made of the translation of the body of
+     the blessed Sebastian,[35] and of the neglected tombs of
+     the martyrs, of which there is such a prodigious number at
+     Rome; and the conversation having turned towards the
+     dedication of our new basilica, I began to inquire how it
+     might be possible for me to obtain some of the true relics
+     of the saints which rest at Rome. He at first hesitated, and
+     declared that he did not know how that could be done. But
+     observing that I was both anxious and curious about the
+     subject, he promised to give me an answer some other day.
+
+     When I returned to the question some time afterwards, he
+     immediately drew from his bosom a paper, which he begged me
+     to read when I was alone, and to tell him what I was
+     disposed to think of that which was therein stated. I took
+     the paper and, as he desired, read it alone and in secret.
+     (Cap. i. 2, 3.)
+
+I shall have occasion to return to Deacon Deusdona's conditions, and
+to what happened after Eginhard's acceptance of them. Suffice it, for
+the present, to say that Eginhard's notary, Ratleicus (Ratleig), was
+despatched to Rome and succeeded in securing two bodies, supposed to
+be those of the holy martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus; and when he had
+got as far on his homeward journey as the Burgundian town of
+Solothurn, or Soleure,[36] notary Ratleig despatched to his master, at
+St. Bavon, a letter announcing the success of his mission.
+
+     As soon as by reading it I was assured of the arrival of the
+     saints, I despatched a confidential messenger to Maestricht
+     to gather together priests, other clerics, and also laymen,
+     to go out to meet the coming saints as speedily as possible.
+     And he and his companions, having lost no time, after a few
+     days met those who had charge of the saints at Solothurn.
+     Joined with them, and with a vast crowd of people who
+     gathered from all parts, singing hymns, and amidst great and
+     universal rejoicings, they travelled quickly to the city of
+     Argentoratum, which is now called Strasburg. Thence
+     embarking on the Rhine, they came to the place called
+     Portus,[37] and landing on the east bank of the river, at
+     the fifth station thence they arrived at Michilinstadt,[38]
+     accompanied by an immense multitude, praising God. This
+     place is in that forest of Germany which in modern times is
+     called the Odenwald, and about six leagues from the Maine.
+     And here, having found a basilica recently built by me, but
+     not yet consecrated, they carried the sacred remains into it
+     and deposited them therein, as if it were to be their final
+     resting-place. As soon as all this was reported to me I
+     travelled thither as quickly as I could. (Cap. ii. 14.)
+
+Three days after Eginhard's arrival began the series of wonderful
+events which he narrates, and for which we have his personal
+guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of a servant
+of Ratleig, the notary, who, being set to watch the holy relics in the
+church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a
+vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came
+and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a
+voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had
+chosen another resting-place and desired to be transported thither
+without delay.
+
+Unfortunately, the saints seem to have forgotten to mention where
+they wished to go; and, with the most anxious desire to gratify their
+smallest wishes, Eginhard was naturally greatly perplexed what to do.
+While in this state of mind, he was one day contemplating his "great
+and wonderful treasure, more precious than all the gold in the world,"
+when it struck him that the chest in which the relics were contained
+was quite unworthy of its contents; and, after vespers, he gave orders
+to one of the sacristans to take the measure of the chest in order
+that a more fitting shrine might be constructed. The man, having
+lighted a wax candle and raised the pall which covered the relics, in
+order to carry out his master's orders, was astonished and terrified
+to observe that the chest was covered with a blood-like exudation
+(_loculum mirum in modum humore sanguineo undique distillantem_), and
+at once sent a message to Eginhard.
+
+     Then I and those priests who accompanied me beheld this
+     stupendous miracle, worthy of all admiration. For just as
+     when it is going to rain, pillars and slabs and marble
+     images exude moisture, and, as it were, sweat, so the chest
+     which contained the most sacred relics was found moist with
+     the blood exuding on all sides. (Cap. ii. 16.)
+
+Three days' fast was ordained in order that the meaning of the portent
+might be ascertained. All that happened, however, was that, at the end
+of that time, the "blood," which had been exuding in drops all the
+while, dried up. Eginhard is careful to say that the liquid "had a
+saline taste, something like that of tears, and was thin as water
+though of the colour of true blood," and he clearly thinks this
+satisfactory evidence that it was blood.
+
+The same night, another servant had a vision, in which still more
+imperative orders for the removal of the relics were given; and, from
+that time forth, "not a single night passed without one, two, or even
+three of our companions receiving revelations in dreams that the
+bodies of the saints were to be transferred from that place to
+another." At last a priest, Hildfrid, saw, in a dream, a venerable
+white-haired man in a priest's vestments, who bitterly reproached
+Eginhard for not obeying the repeated orders of the saints; and, upon
+this, the journey was commenced. Why Eginhard delayed obedience to
+these repeated visions so long does not appear. He does not say so, in
+so many words, but the general tenor of the narrative leads one to
+suppose that Mulinheim (afterwards Seligenstadt) is the "solitary
+place" in which he had built the church which awaited dedication. In
+that case, all the people about him would know that he desired that
+the saints should go there. If a glimmering of secular sense led him
+to be a little suspicious about the real cause of the unanimity of the
+visionary beings who manifested themselves to his _entourage_, in
+favour of moving on, he does not say so.
+
+At the end of the first day's journey, the precious relics were
+deposited in the church of St. Martin, in the village of Ostheim.
+Hither, a paralytic nun (_sanctimonialis qu�dam paralytica_) of the
+name of Ruodlang was brought, in a car, by her friends and relatives
+from a monastery a league off. She spent the night watching and
+praying by the bier of the saints; "and health returning to all her
+members, on the morrow she went back to her place whence she came, on
+her feet, nobody supporting her, or in any way giving her assistance."
+(Cap. ii. 19.)
+
+On the second day, the relics were carried to Upper Mulinheim; and,
+finally, in accordance with the orders of the martyrs, deposited in
+the church of that place, which was therefore renamed Seligenstadt.
+Here, Daniel, a beggar boy of fifteen, and so bent that "he could not
+look at the sky without lying on his back," collapsed and fell down
+during the celebration of the Mass. "Thus he lay a long time, as if
+asleep, and all his limbs straightening and his flesh strengthening
+(_recepta firmitate nervorum_), he arose before our eyes, quite well."
+(Cap. ii. 20.)
+
+Some time afterwards an old man entered the church on his hands and
+knees, being unable to use his limbs properly:--
+
+     He, in presence of all of us, by the power of God and the
+     merits of the blessed martyrs, in the same hour in which he
+     entered was so perfectly cured that he walked without so
+     much as a stick. And he said that, though he had been deaf
+     for five years, his deafness had ceased along with the
+     palsy. (Cap. iii. 33.)
+
+Eginhard was now obliged to return to the Court at Aix-la-Chapelle,
+where his duties kept him through the winter; and he is careful to
+point out that the later miracles which he proceeds to speak of are
+known to him only at second hand. But, as he naturally observes,
+having seen such wonderful events with his own eyes, why should he
+doubt similar narrations when they are received from trustworthy
+sources?
+
+Wonderful stories these are indeed, but as they are, for the most
+part, of the same general character as those already recounted, they
+may be passed over. There is, however, an account of a possessed
+maiden which is worth attention. This is set forth in a memoir, the
+principal contents of which are the speeches of a demon who declared
+himself to possess the singular appellation of "Wiggo," and revealed
+himself in the presence of many witnesses, before the altar, close to
+the relics of the blessed martyrs. It is noteworthy that the
+revelations appear to have been made in the shape of replies to the
+questions of the exorcising priest; and there is no means of judging
+how far the answers are, really, only the questions to which the
+patient replied yes or no.
+
+The possessed girl, about sixteen years of age, was brought by her
+parents to the basilica of the martyrs.
+
+     When she approached the tomb containing the sacred bodies,
+     the priest, according to custom, read the formula of
+     exorcism over her head. When he began to ask how and when
+     the demon had entered her, she answered, not in the tongue
+     of the barbarians, which alone the girl knew, but in the
+     Roman tongue. And when the priest was astonished and asked
+     how she came to know Latin, when her parents, who stood by,
+     were wholly ignorant of it, "Thou hast never seen my
+     parents," was the reply. To this the priest, "Whence art
+     thou, then, if these are not thy parents?" And the demon, by
+     the mouth of the girl, "I am a follower and disciple of
+     Satan, and for a long time I was gatekeeper (janitor) in
+     hell; but for some years, along with eleven companions, I
+     have ravaged the kingdom of the Franks." (Cap. v. 49.)
+
+He then goes on to tell how they blasted the crops and scattered
+pestilence among beasts and men, because of the prevalent wickedness
+of the people.[39]
+
+The enumeration of all these iniquities, in oratorical style, takes up
+a whole octavo page; and at the end it is stated, "All these things
+the demon spoke in Latin by the mouth of the girl."
+
+     And when the priest imperatively ordered him to come out, "I
+     shall go," said he, "not in obedience to you, but on account
+     of the power of the saints, who do not allow me to remain
+     any longer." And having said this, he threw the girl down on
+     the floor and there compelled her to lie prostrate for a
+     time, as though she slumbered. After a little while,
+     however, he going away, the girl, by the power of Christ and
+     the merits of the blessed martyrs, as it were awaking from
+     sleep, rose up quite well, to the astonishment of all
+     present; nor after the demon had gone out was she able to
+     speak Latin: so that it was plain enough that it was not she
+     who had spoken in that tongue, but the demon by her mouth.
+     (Cap. v. 51.)
+
+If the "Historia Translationis" contained nothing more than has been
+laid before the reader, up to this time, disbelief in the miracles of
+which it gives so precise and full a record might well be regarded as
+hyper-scepticism. It might fairly be said, Here you have a man, whose
+high character, acute intelligence, and large instruction are
+certified by eminent contemporaries; a man who stood high in the
+confidence of one of the greatest rulers of any age, and whose other
+works prove him to be an accurate and judicious narrator of ordinary
+events. This man tells you, in language which bears the stamp of
+sincerity, of things which happened within his own knowledge, or
+within that of persons in whose veracity he has entire confidence,
+while he appeals to his sovereign and the court as witnesses of
+others; what possible ground can there be for disbelieving him?
+
+Well, it is hard upon Eginhard to say so, but it is exactly the
+honesty and sincerity of the man which are his undoing as a witness to
+the miraculous. He himself makes it quite obvious that when his
+profound piety comes on the stage, his good sense and even his
+perception of right and wrong, make their exit. Let us go back to the
+point at which we left him, secretly perusing the letter of Deacon
+Deusdona. As he tells us, its contents were
+
+     that he [the deacon] had many relics of saints at home, and
+     that he would give them to me if I would furnish him with
+     the means of returning to Rome; he had observed that I had
+     two mules, and if I would let him have one of them and would
+     despatch with him a confidential servant to take charge of
+     the relics, he would at once send them to me. This plausibly
+     expressed proposition pleased me, and I made up my mind to
+     test the value of the somewhat ambiguous promise at
+     once;[40] so giving him the mule and money for his journey I
+     ordered my notary Ratleig (who already desired to go to Rome
+     to offer his devotions there) to go with him. Therefore,
+     having left Aix-la-Chapelle (where the Emperor and his Court
+     resided at the time) they came to Soissons. Here they spoke
+     with Hildoin, abbot of the monastery of St. Medardus,
+     because the said deacon had assured him that he had the
+     means of placing in his possession the body of the blessed
+     Tiburtius the Martyr. Attracted by which promises he
+     (Hildoin) sent with them a certain priest, Hunus by name, a
+     sharp man (_hominem callidum_), whom he ordered to receive
+     and bring back the body of the martyr in question. And so,
+     resuming their journey, they proceeded to Rome as fast as
+     they could. (Cap. i. 3.)
+
+Unfortunately, a servant of the notary, one Reginbald, fell ill of a
+tertian fever, and impeded the progress of the party. However, this
+piece of adversity had its sweet uses; for three days before they
+reached Rome, Reginbald had a vision. Somebody habited as a deacon
+appeared to him and asked why his master was in such a hurry to get
+to Rome; and when Reginbald explained their business, this visionary
+deacon, who seems to have taken the measure of his brother in the
+flesh with some accuracy, told him not by any means to expect that
+Deusdona would fulfil his promises. Moreover, taking the servant by
+the hand, he led him to the top of a high mountain and, showing him
+Rome (where the man had never been), pointed out a church, adding
+"Tell Ratleig the thing he wants is hidden there; let him get it as
+quickly as he can and go back to his master." By way of a sign that
+the order was authoritative, the servant was promised that, from that
+time forth, his fever should disappear. And as the fever did vanish to
+return no more, the faith of Eginhard's people in Deacon Deusdona
+naturally vanished with it (_et fidem diaconi promissis non
+haberent_). Nevertheless, they put up at the deacon's house near St.
+Peter ad Vincula. But time went on and no relics made their
+appearance, while the notary and the priest were put off with all
+sorts of excuses--the brother to whom the relics had been confided was
+gone to Beneventum and not expected back for some time, and so
+on--until Ratleig and Hunus began to despair, and were minded to
+return, _infecto negotio_.
+
+     But my notary, calling to mind his servant's dream, proposed
+     to his companion that they should go to the cemetery which
+     their host had talked about without him. So, having found
+     and hired a guide, they went in the first place to the
+     basilica of the blessed Tiburtius in the Via Labicana, about
+     three thousand paces fron the town, and cautiously and
+     carefully inspected the tomb of that martyr, in order to
+     discover whether it could be opened without any one being
+     the wiser. Then they descended into the adjoining crypt, in
+     which the bodies of the blessed martyrs of Christ,
+     Marcellinus and Petrus, were buried; and, having made out
+     the nature of their tomb, they went away thinking their host
+     would not know what they had been about. But things fell out
+     differently from what they had imagined. (Cap. i. 7.)
+
+In fact, Deacon Deusdona, who doubtless kept an eye on his guests,
+knew all about their manoeuvres and made haste to offer his services,
+in order that, "with the help of God" (_si Deus votis eorum favere
+dignaretur_), they should all work together. The deacon was evidently
+alarmed lest they should succeed without _his_ help.
+
+So, by way of preparation for the contemplated _vol avec effraction_
+they fasted three days; and then, at night, without being seen, they
+betook themselves to the basilica of St. Tiburtius, and tried to break
+open the altar erected over his remains. But the marble proving too
+solid, they descended to the crypt, and, "having evoked our Lord Jesus
+Christ and adored the holy martyrs," they proceeded to prise off the
+stone which covered the tomb, and thereby exposed the body of the most
+sacred martyr, Marcellinus, "whose head rested on a marble tablet on
+which his name was inscribed." The body was taken up with the
+greatest veneration, wrapped in a rich covering, and given over to the
+keeping of the deacon and his brother, Lunison, while the stone was
+replaced with such care that no sign of the theft remained.
+
+As sacrilegious proceedings of this kind were punishable with death by
+the Roman law, it seems not unnatural that Deacon Deusdona should have
+become uneasy, and have urged Ratleig to be satisfied with what he had
+got and be off with his spoils. But the notary having thus cleverly
+captured the blessed Marcellinus, thought it a pity he should be
+parted from the blessed Petrus, side by side with whom he had rested,
+for five hundred years and more, in the same sepulchre (as Eginhard
+pathetically observes); and the pious man could neither eat, drink,
+nor sleep, until he had compassed his desire to re-unite the saintly
+colleagues. This time, apparently in consequence of Deusdona's
+opposition to any further resurrectionist doings, he took counsel with
+a Greek monk, one Basil, and, accompanied by Hunus, but saying nothing
+to Deusdona, they committed another sacrilegious burglary, securing
+this time, not only the body of the blessed Petrus, but a quantity of
+dust, which they agreed the priest should take, and tell his employer
+that it was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius. How Deusdona was
+"squared," and what he got for his not very valuable complicity in
+these transactions, does not appear. But at last the relics were sent
+off in charge of Lunison, the brother of Deusdona, and the priest
+Hunus, as far as Pavia, while Ratleig stopped behind for a week to see
+if the robbery was discovered, and, presumably, to act as a blind, if
+any hue and cry was raised. But, as everything remained quiet, the
+notary betook himself to Pavia, where he found Lunison and Hunus
+awaiting his arrival. The notary's opinion of the character of his
+worthy colleagues, however, may be gathered from the fact that, having
+persuaded them to set out in advance along the road which he told them
+he was about to take, he immediately adopted another route, and,
+travelling by way of St. Maurice and the Lake of Geneva, eventually
+reached Soleure.
+
+Eginhard tells all this story with the most naive air of
+unconsciousness that there is anything remarkable about an abbot, and
+a high officer of state to boot, being an accessory, both before and
+after the fact, to a most gross and scandalous act of sacrilegious and
+burglarious robbery. And an amusing sequel to the story proves that,
+where relics were concerned, his friend Hildoin, another high
+ecclesiastical dignitary, was even less scrupulous than himself.
+
+On going to the palace early one morning, after the saints were safely
+bestowed at Seligenstadt, he found Hildoin waiting for an audience in
+the Emperor's antechamber, and began to talk to him about the miracle
+of the bloody exudation. In the course of conversation, Eginhard
+happened to allude to the remarkable fineness of the garment of the
+blessed Marcellinus. Whereupon Abbot Hildoin observed (to Eginhard's
+stupefaction) that his observation was quite correct. Much astonished
+at this remark from a person who was supposed not to have seen the
+relics, Eginhard asked him how he knew that? Upon this, Hildoin saw
+that he had better make a clean breast of it, and he told the
+following story, which he had received from his priestly agent, Hunus.
+While Hunus and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Eginhard's notary,
+Hunus (according to his own account) had robbed the robbers. The
+relics were placed in a church; and a number of laymen and clerics, of
+whom Hunus was one, undertook to keep watch over them. One night,
+however, all the watchers, save the wide-awake Hunus, went to sleep;
+and then, according to the story which this "sharp" ecclesiastic
+foisted upon his patron,
+
+     it was borne in upon his mind that there must be some great
+     reason why all the people, except himself, had suddenly
+     become somnolent; and, determining to avail himself of the
+     opportunity thus offered (_oblata occasione utendum_), he
+     rose and, having lighted a candle, silently approached the
+     chests. Then, having burnt through the threads of the seals
+     with the flame of the candle, he quickly opened the chests,
+     which had no locks;[41] and taking out portions of each of
+     the bodies which were thus exposed, he closed the chests
+     and connected the burnt ends of the threads with the seals
+     again, so that they appeared not to have been touched; and,
+     no one having seen him, he returned to his place. (Cap. iii.
+     23.)
+
+Hildoin went on to tell Eginhard that Hunus at first declared to him
+that these purloined relics belonged to St. Tiburtius; but afterwards
+confessed, as a great secret, how he had come by them, and he wound up
+his discourse thus:
+
+     They have a place of honour beside St. Medardus, where they
+     are worshipped with great veneration by all the people; but
+     whether we may keep them or not is for your judgment (Cap.
+     iii. 23.)
+
+Poor Eginhard was thrown into a state of great perturbation of mind by
+this revelation. An acquaintance of his had recently told him of a
+rumour that was spread about that Hunus had contrived to abstract
+_all_ the remains of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus while Eginhard's
+agents were in a drunken sleep; and that, while the real relics were
+in Abbot Hildoin's hands at St. Medardus, the shrine at Seligenstadt
+contained nothing but a little dust. Though greatly annoyed by this
+"execrable rumour, spread everywhere by the subtlety of the devil,"
+Eginhard had doubtless comforted himself by his supposed knowledge of
+its falsity, and he only now discovered how considerable a foundation
+there was for the scandal. There was nothing for it but to insist upon
+the return of the stolen treasures. One would have thought that the
+holy man, who had admitted himself to be knowingly a receiver of
+stolen goods, would have made instant restitution and begged only for
+absolution. But Eginhard intimates that he had very great difficulty
+in getting his brother abbot to see that even restitution was
+necessary.
+
+Hildoin's proceedings were not of such a nature as to lead any one to
+place implicit confidence in anything he might say; still less had his
+agent, priest Hunus, established much claim to confidence; and it is
+not surprising that Eginhard should have lost no time in summoning his
+notary and Lunison to his presence, in order that he might hear what
+they had to say about the business. They, however, at once protested
+that priest Hunus's story was a parcel of lies, and that after the
+relics left Rome no one had any opportunity of meddling with them.
+Moreover, Lunison, throwing himself at Eginhard's feet, confessed with
+many tears what actually took place. It will be remembered that after
+the body of St. Marcellinus was abstracted from its tomb, Ratleig
+deposited it in the house of Deusdona, in charge of the latter's
+brother, Lunison. But Hunus, being very much disappointed that he
+could not get hold of the body of St. Tiburtius, and afraid to go back
+to his abbot empty-handed, bribed Lunison with four pieces of gold and
+five of silver to give him access to the chest. This Lunison did, and
+Hunus helped himself to as much as would fill a gallon measure (_vas
+sextarii mensuram_) of the sacred remains. Eginhard's indignation at
+the "rapine" of this "nequissimus nebulo" is exquisitely droll. It
+would appear that the adage about the receiver being as bad as the
+thief was not current in the ninth century.
+
+Let us now briefly sum up the history of the acquisition of the
+relics. Eginhard makes a contract with Deusdona for the delivery of
+certain relics which the latter says he possesses. Eginhard makes no
+inquiry how he came by them; otherwise, the transaction is innocent
+enough.
+
+Deusdona turns out to be a swindler, and has no relics. Thereupon
+Eginhard's agent, after due fasting and prayer, breaks open the tombs
+and helps himself.
+
+Eginhard discovers by the self-betrayal of his brother abbot, Hildoin,
+that portions of his relics have been stolen and conveyed to the
+latter. With much ado he succeeds in getting them back.
+
+Hildoin's agent, Hunus, in delivering these stolen goods to him, at
+first declared they were the relics of St. Tiburtius, which Hildoin
+desired him to obtain; but afterwards invented a story of their being
+the product of a theft, which the providential drowsiness of his
+companions enabled him to perpetrate, from the relics which Hildoin
+well knew were the property of his friend.
+
+Lunison, on the contrary, swears that all his story is false, and that
+he himself was bribed by Hunus to allow him to steal what he pleased
+from the property confided to his own and his brother's care by their
+guest Ratleig. And the honest notary himself seems to have no
+hesitation about lying and stealing to any extent, where the
+acquisition of relics is the object in view.
+
+For a parallel to these transactions one must read a police report of
+the doings of a "long firm" or of a set of horse-coupers; yet Eginhard
+seems to be aware of nothing, but that he has been rather badly used
+by his friend Hildoin, and the "nequissimus nebulo" Hunus.
+
+It is not easy for a modern Protestant, still less for any one who has
+the least tincture of scientific culture, whether physical or
+historical, to picture to himself the state of mind of a man of the
+ninth century, however cultivated, enlightened, and sincere he may
+have been. His deepest convictions, his most cherished hopes, were
+bound up with the belief in the miraculous. Life was a constant battle
+between saints and demons for the possession of the souls of men. The
+most superstitious among our modern countrymen turn to supernatural
+agencies only when natural causes seem insufficient; to Eginhard and
+his friends the supernatural was the rule; and the sufficiency of
+natural causes was allowed only when there was nothing to suggest
+others.
+
+Moreover, it must be recollected that the possession of
+miracle-working relics was greatly coveted, not only on high, but on
+very low grounds. To a man like Eginhard, the mere satisfaction of the
+religious sentiment was obviously a powerful attraction. But, more
+than, this, the possession of such a treasure was an immense practical
+advantage. If the saints were duly flattered and worshipped, there was
+no telling what benefits might result from their interposition on your
+behalf. For physical evils, access to the shrine was like the grant of
+the use of a universal pill and ointment manufactory; and pilgrimages
+thereto might suffice to cleanse the performers from any amount of
+sin. A letter to Lupus, subsequently abbot of Ferrara, written while
+Eginhard was smarting under the grief caused by the loss of his
+much-loved wife Imma, affords a striking insight into the current view
+of the relation between the glorified saints and their worshippers.
+The writer shows that he is anything but satisfied with the way in
+which he has been treated by the blessed martyrs whose remains he has
+taken such pains to "convey" to Seligenstadt, and to honour there as
+they would never have been honoured in their Roman obscurity.
+
+     It is an aggravation of my grief and a reopening of my
+     wound, that our vows have been of no avail, and that the
+     faith which we placed in the merits and intervention of the
+     martyrs has been utterly disappointed.
+
+We may admit, then, without impeachment of Eginhard's sincerity, or
+of his honour under all ordinary circumstances, that when piety,
+self-interest, the glory of the Church in general, and that of the
+church at Seligenstadt in particular, all pulled one way, even the
+workaday principles of morality were disregarded; and, _a fortiori_,
+anything like proper investigation of the reality of alleged miracles
+was thrown to the winds.
+
+And if this was the condition of mind of such a man as Eginhard, what
+is it not legitimate to suppose may have been that of Deacon Deusdona,
+Lunison, Hunus, and Company, thieves and cheats by their own
+confession, or of the probably hysterical nun, or of the professional
+beggars, for whose incapacity to walk and straighten themselves there
+is no guarantee but their own? Who is to make sure that the exorcist
+of the demon Wiggo was not just such another priest as Hunus; and is
+it not at least possible, when Eginhard's servants dreamed, night
+after night, in such a curiously coincident fashion, that a careful
+inquirer might have found they were very anxious to please their
+master.
+
+Quite apart from deliberate and conscious fraud (which is a rarer
+thing than is often supposed), people, whose mythopoeic faculty is
+once stirred, are capable of saying the thing that is not, and of
+acting as they should not, to an extent which is hardly imaginable by
+persons who are not so easily affected by the contagion of blind
+faith. There is no falsity so gross that honest men and, still more,
+virtuous women, anxious to promote a good cause, will not lend
+themselves to it without any clear consciousness of the moral bearings
+of what they are doing.
+
+The cases of miraculously-effected cures of which Eginhard is ocular
+witness appear to belong to classes of disease in which malingering is
+possible or hysteria presumable. Without modern means of diagnosis,
+the names given to them are quite worthless. One "miracle," however,
+in which the patient, a woman, was cured by the mere sight of the
+church in which the relics of the blessed martyrs lay, is an
+unmistakable case of dislocation of the lower jaw; and it is obvious
+that, as not unfrequently happens in such accidents in weakly
+subjects, the jaws slipped suddenly back into place, perhaps in
+consequence of a jolt, as the woman rode towards the church. (Cap. v.
+53.)[42]
+
+There is also a good deal said about a very questionable blind
+man--one Albricus (Alberich?)--who, having been cured, not of his
+blindness, but of another disease under which he laboured, took up his
+quarters at Seligenstadt, and came out as a prophet, inspired by the
+Archangel Gabriel. Eginhard intimates that his prophecies were
+fulfilled; but as he does not state exactly what they were, or how
+they were accomplished, the statement must be accepted with much
+caution. It is obvious that he was not the man to hesitate to "ease" a
+prophecy until it fitted, if the credit of the shrine of his favourite
+saints could be increased by such a procedure. There is no impeachment
+of his honour in the supposition. The logic of the matter is quite
+simple, if somewhat sophistical. The holiness of the church of the
+martyrs guarantees the reality of the appearance of the Archangel
+Gabriel there; and what the archangel says must be true. Therefore, if
+anything seem to be wrong, that must be the mistake of the
+transmitter; and, in justice to the archangel, it must be suppressed
+or set right. This sort of "reconciliation" is not unknown in quite
+modern times, and among people who would be very much shocked to be
+compared with a "benighted papist" of the ninth century.
+
+The readers of this essay are, I imagine, very largely composed of
+people who would be shocked to be regarded as anything but enlightened
+Protestants. It is not unlikely that those of them who have
+accompanied me thus far may be disposed to say, "Well, this is all
+very amusing as a story, but what is the practical interest of it? We
+are not likely to believe in the miracles worked by the spolia of SS.
+Marcellinus and Petrus, or by those of any other saints in the Roman
+Calendar."
+
+The practical interest is this: if you do not believe in these
+miracles recounted by a witness whose character and competency are
+firmly established, whose sincerity cannot be doubted, and who appeals
+to his sovereign and other contemporaries as witnesses of the truth of
+what he says, in a document of which a MS. copy exists, probably
+dating within a century of the author's death, why do you profess to
+believe in stories of a like character, which are found in documents
+of the dates and of the authorship of which nothing is certainly
+determined, and no known copies of which come within two or three
+centuries of the events they record? If it be true that the four
+Gospels and the Acts were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
+all that we know of these persons comes to nothing in comparison with
+our knowledge of Eginhard; and not only is there no proof that the
+traditional authors of these works wrote them, but very strong reasons
+to the contrary may be alleged. If, therefore, you refuse to believe
+that "Wiggo" was cast out of the possessed girl on Eginhard's
+authority, with what justice can you profess to believe that the
+legion of devils were cast out of the man among the tombs of the
+Gadarenes? And if, on the other hand, you accept Eginhard's evidence,
+why do you laugh at the supposed efficacy of relics and the
+saint-worship of the modern Romanists? It cannot be pretended, in the
+face of all evidence, that the Jews of the year 30 A.D., or
+thereabouts, were less imbued with the belief in the supernatural than
+were the Franks of the year 800 A.D. The same influences were at work
+in each case, and it is only reasonable to suppose that the results
+were the same. If the evidence of Eginhard is insufficient to lead
+reasonable men to believe in the miracles he relates, _a fortiori_ the
+evidence afforded by the Gospels and the Acts must be so.[43]
+
+But it may be said that no serious critic denies the genuineness of
+the four great Pauline Epistles--Galatians, First and Second
+Corinthians, and Romans--and that in three out of these four Paul lays
+claim to the power of working miracles.[44] Must we suppose,
+therefore, that the Apostle to the Gentiles has stated that which is
+false? But to how much does this so-called claim amount? It may mean
+much or little. Paul nowhere tells us what he did in this direction;
+and in his sore need to justify his assumption of apostleship against
+the sneers of his enemies, it is hardly likely that, if he had any
+very striking cases to bring forward, he would have neglected evidence
+so well calculated to put them to shame. And, without the slightest
+impeachment of Paul's veracity, we must further remember that his
+strongly-marked mental characteristics, displayed in unmistakable
+fashion by these Epistles, are anything but those which would justify
+us in regarding him as a critical witness respecting matters of fact,
+or as a trustworthy interpreter of their significance. When a man
+testifies to a miracle, he not only states a fact, but he adds an
+interpretation of the fact. We may admit his evidence as to the
+former, and yet think his opinion as to the latter worthless. If
+Eginhard's calm and objective narrative of the historical events of
+his time is no guarantee for the soundness of his judgment where the
+supernatural is concerned, the heated rhetoric of the Apostle of the
+Gentiles, his absolute confidence in the "inner light," and the
+extraordinary conceptions of the nature and requirements of logical
+proof which he betrays, in page after page of his Epistles, afford
+still less security.
+
+There is a comparatively modern man who shared to the full Paul's
+trust in the "inner light," and who, though widely different from the
+fiery evangelist of Tarsus in various obvious particulars, yet, if I
+am not mistaken, shares his deepest characteristics. I speak of George
+Fox, who separated himself from the current Protestantism of England,
+in the seventeenth century, as Paul separated himself from the
+Judaism of the first century, at the bidding of the "inner light"; who
+went through persecutions as serious as those which Paul enumerates;
+who was beaten, stoned, cast out for dead, imprisoned nine times,
+sometimes for long periods; who was in perils on land and perils at
+sea. George Fox was an even more widely-travelled missionary; while
+his success in founding congregations, and his energy in visiting
+them, not merely in Great Britain and Ireland and the West India
+Islands, but on the continent of Europe and that of North America,
+were no less remarkable. A few years after Fox began to preach, there
+were reckoned to be a thousand Friends in prison in the various gaols
+of England; at his death, less than fifty years after the foundation
+of the sect, there were 70,000 Quakers in the United Kingdom. The
+cheerfulness with which these people--women as well as men--underwent
+martyrdom in this country and in the New England States is one of the
+most remarkable facts in the history of religion.
+
+No one who reads the voluminous autobiography of "Honest George" can
+doubt the man's utter truthfulness; and though, in his multitudinous
+letters, he but rarely rises for above the incoherent commonplaces of
+a street preacher, there can be no question of his power as a speaker,
+nor any doubt as to the dignity and attractiveness of his personality,
+or of his possession of a large amount of practical good sense and
+governing faculty.
+
+But that George Fox had full faith in his own powers as a
+miracle-worker, the following passage of his autobiography (to which
+others might he added) demonstrates:--
+
+     Now after I was set at liberty from Nottingham gaol (where I
+     had been kept a prisoner a pretty long time) I travelled as
+     before, in the work of the Lord. And coming to Mansfield
+     Woodhouse, there was a distracted woman, under a doctor's
+     hand, with her hair let loose all about her ears; and he was
+     about to let her blood, she being first bound, and many
+     people being about her, holding her by violence; but he
+     could get no blood from her. And I desired them to unbind
+     her and let her alone; for they could not touch the spirit
+     in her by which she was tormented. So they did unbind her,
+     and I was moved to speak to her, and in the name of the Lord
+     to bid her be quiet and still. And she was so. And the
+     Lord's power settled her mind and she mended; and afterwards
+     received the truth and continued in it to her death. And the
+     Lord's name was honoured; to whom the glory of all His works
+     belongs. Many great and wonderful things were wrought by the
+     heavenly power in those days. For the Lord made bare his
+     omnipotent arm and manifested His power to the astonishment
+     of many; by the healing virtue whereof many have been
+     delivered from great infirmities, and the devils were made
+     subject through his name: of which particular instances
+     might be given beyond what this unbelieving age is able to
+     receive or bear.[45]
+
+It needs no long study of Fox's writings, however, to arrive at the
+conviction that the distinction between subjective and objective
+verities had not the same place in his mind as it has in that of an
+ordinary mortal. When an ordinary person would say "I thought so and
+so," or "I made up my mind to do so and so," George Fox says, "It was
+opened to me," or "at the command of God I did so and so." "Then at
+the command of God on the ninth day of the seventh month 1643 (Fox
+being just nineteen), I left my relations and brake off all
+familiarity or friendship with young or old." "About the beginning of
+the year 1647 I was moved of the Lord to go into Darbyshire." Fox
+hears voices and he sees visions, some of which he brings before the
+reader with apocalyptic power in the simple and strong English, alike
+untutored and undefiled, of which, like John Bunyan, his contemporary,
+he was a master.
+
+"And one morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over
+me and a temptation beset me; and I sate still. And it was said, _All
+things come by Nature_. And the elements and stars came over me; so
+that I was in a manner quite clouded with it.... And as I sate still
+under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true
+voice arose in me which said, _There is a living God who made all
+things_. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished away,
+and life rose over it all, and my heart was glad and I praised the
+living God" (p. 13).
+
+If George Fox could speak, as he proves in this and some other
+passages he could write, his astounding influence on the
+contemporaries of Milton and of Cromwell is no mystery. But this
+modern reproduction of the ancient prophet, with his "Thus saith the
+Lord," "This is the work of the Lord," steeped in supernaturalism and
+glorying in blind faith, is the mental antipodes of the philosopher,
+founded in naturalism and a fanatic for evidence, to whom these
+affirmations inevitably suggest the previous question: "How do you
+know that the Lord saith it?" "How do you know that the Lord doeth
+it?" and who is compelled to demand that rational ground for belief,
+without which, to the man of science, assent is merely an immoral
+pretence.
+
+And it is this rational ground of belief which the writers of the
+Gospels, no less than Paul, and Eginhard, and Fox, so little dream of
+offering that they would regard the demand for it as a kind of
+blasphemy.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [33] My citations are made from Teulet's _Einhardi omnia
+          qu� extant opera_, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a
+          biography of the author, a history of the text, with
+          translations into French, and many valuable
+          annotations.
+
+     [34] At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt
+          and Baden.
+
+     [35] This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were
+          brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St.
+          Medardus at Soissons.
+
+     [36] Now included in Western Switzerland.
+
+     [37] Probably, according to Teulet, the present
+          Sandhoferfahrt, a little below the embouchure of the
+          Neckar.
+
+     [38] The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N.E. of
+          Heidelberg.
+
+     [39] In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite
+          accusations against witches was that they committed
+          just these enormities.
+
+     [40] It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about
+          the deacon, whose pledges he qualifies as _sponsiones
+          incert�_. But, to be sure, he wrote after events which
+          fully justified scepticism.
+
+     [41] The words are _scrinia sine clave_, which seems to mean
+          "having no key." But the circumstances forbid the idea
+          of breaking open.
+
+     [42] Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the "vana ac
+          superstitiosa pr�sumptio" of the poor woman's
+          companions in trying to alleviate her sufferings with
+          "herbs and frivolous incantations." Vain enough, no
+          doubt, but the "muliercul�" might have returned the
+          epithet "superstitious" with interest.
+
+     [43] Of course there is nothing new in this argument: but it
+          does not grow weaker by age. And the case of Eginhard
+          is far more instructive than that of Augustine, because
+          the former has so very frankly, though incidentally,
+          revealed to us not only his own mental and moral
+          habits, but those of the people about him.
+
+     [44] See 1 Cor. xii. 10-28; 2 Cor. vi. 12; Rom. xv. 19.
+
+     [45] _A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels,
+          Sufferings, and Christian Experiences, &c., of George
+          Fox_, Ed. 1694, pp. 27, 28.
+
+
+
+
+VI: POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES
+
+[1891]
+
+
+In the course of a discussion which has been going on during the last
+two years,[46] it has been maintained by the defenders of
+ecclesiastical Christianity that the demonology of the books of the
+New Testament is an essential and integral part of the revelation of
+the nature of the spiritual world promulgated by Jesus of Nazareth.
+Indeed, if the historical accuracy of the Gospels and of the Acts of
+the Apostles is to be taken for granted, if the teachings of the
+Epistles are divinely inspired, and if the universal belief and
+practice of the primitive Church are the models which all later times
+must follow, there can be no doubt that those who accept the
+demonology are in the right. It is as plain as language can make it,
+that the writers of the Gospels believed in the existence of Satan and
+the subordinate ministers of evil as strongly as they believed in
+that of God and the angels, and that they had an unhesitating faith in
+possession and in exorcism. No reader of the first three Gospels can
+hesitate to admit that, in the opinion of those persons among whom the
+traditions out of which they are compiled arose, Jesus held, and
+constantly acted upon, the same theory of the spiritual world. Nowhere
+do we find the slightest hint that he doubted the theory, or
+questioned the efficacy of the curative operations based upon it.
+
+Thus, when such a story as that about the Gadarene swine is placed
+before us, the importance of the decision, whether it is to be
+accepted or rejected, cannot be over-estimated. If the demonological
+part of it is to be accepted, the authority of Jesus is unmistakably
+pledged to the demonological system current in Jud�a in the first
+century. The belief in devils who possess men and can be transferred
+from men to pigs, becomes as much a part of Christian dogma as any
+article of the creeds. If it is to be rejected, there are two
+alternative conclusions. Supposing the Gospels to be historically
+accurate, it follows that Jesus shared in the errors, respecting the
+nature of the spiritual world, prevalent in the age in which he lived
+and among the people of his nation. If, on the other hand, the Gospel
+traditions gives us only a popular version of the sayings and doings
+of Jesus, falsely coloured and distorted by the superstitious
+imaginings of the minds through which it had passed, what guarantee
+have we that a similar unconscious falsification, in accordance with
+preconceived ideas, may not have taken place in respect of other
+reported sayings and doings? What is to prevent a conscientious
+inquirer from finding himself at last in a purely agnostic position
+with respect to the teachings of Jesus, and consequently with respect
+to the fundamentals of Christianity?
+
+In dealing with the question whether the Gadarene story was to be
+believed or not, I confined myself altogether to a discussion of the
+value of the evidence in its favour. And, as it was easy to prove that
+this consists of nothing more than three partially discrepant, but
+often verbally coincident, versions of an original, of the authorship
+of which nobody knows anything, it appeared to me that it was wholly
+worthless. Even if the event described had been probable, such
+evidence would have required corroboration; being grossly improbable,
+and involving acts questionable in their moral and legal aspect, the
+three accounts sank to the level of mere tales.
+
+Thus far, I am unable, even after the most careful revision, to find
+any flaw in my argument; and I incline to think none has been found by
+my critics--at least, if they have, they have kept the discovery to
+themselves.
+
+In another part of my treatment of the case I have been less
+fortunate. I was careful to say that, for anything I could "absolutely
+prove to the contrary," there might be in the universe demonic beings
+who could enter into and possess men, and even be transferred from
+them to pigs; and that I, for my part, could not venture to declare _�
+priori_ that the existence of such entities was "impossible." I was,
+however, no less careful to remark that I thought the evidence
+hitherto adduced in favour of the existence of such beings
+"ridiculously insufficient" to warrant the belief in them.
+
+To my surprise, this statement of what, after the closest reflection,
+I still conceive to be the right conclusion, has been hailed as a
+satisfactory admission by opponents, and lamented as a perilous
+concession by sympathisers. Indeed, the tone of the comments of some
+candid friends has been such that I began to suspect that I must be
+entering upon a process of retrogressive metamorphosis which might
+eventually give me a place among the respectabilities. The prospect,
+perhaps, ought to have pleased me; but I confess I felt something of
+the uneasiness of the tailor who said that, whenever a customer's
+circumference was either much less, or much more, than at the last
+measurement, he at once sent in his bill; and I was not consoled until
+I recollected that, thirteen years ago, in discussing Hume's essay on
+"Miracles," I had quoted, with entire assent, the following passage
+from his writings: "Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly
+conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by
+any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning _� priori_."[47]
+
+Now, it is certain that the existence of demons can be distinctly
+conceived. In fact, from the earliest times of which we have any record
+to the present day, the great majority of mankind have had extremely
+distinct conceptions of them, and their practical life has been more or
+less shaped by those conceptions. Further, the notion of the existence
+of such beings "implies no contradiction." No doubt, in our experience,
+intelligence and volition are always found in connection with a certain
+material organisation, and never disconnected with it; while, by the
+hypothesis, demons have no such material substratum. But then, as
+everybody knows, the exact relation between mental and physical
+phenomena, even in ourselves, is the subject of endless dispute. We may
+all have our opinions as to whether mental phenomena have a substratum
+distinct from that which is assumed to underlie material phenomena, or
+not; though if any one thinks he has demonstrative evidence of either
+the existence or the non-existence of a "soul," all I can say is, his
+notion of demonstration differs from mine. But, if it be impossible to
+demonstrate the non-existence of a "substance" of mental phenomena--that
+is, of a soul--independent of material "substance"; if the idea of such
+a "soul" is "intelligible and can be distinctly conceived," then it
+follows that it is not justifiable to talk of demons as
+"impossibilities." The idea of their existence implies no more
+"contradiction" than does the idea of the existence of pathogenic
+microbes in the air. Indeed, the microbes constitute a tolerably exact
+physical analogue of the "powers of the air" of ancient belief.
+
+Strictly speaking, I am unaware of any thing that has a right to the
+title of an "impossibility" except a contradiction in terms. There are
+impossibilities logical, but none natural. A "round square," a
+"present past," "two parallel lines that intersect," are
+impossibilities, because the ideas denoted by the predicates, _round,
+present, intersect_, are contradictory of the ideas denoted by the
+subjects, _square, past, parallel_. But walking on water, or turning
+water into wine, or procreation without male intervention, or raising
+the dead, are plainly not "impossibilities" in this sense.
+
+In the affirmation, that a man walked upon water, the idea of the
+subject is not contradictory of that in the predicate. Naturalists are
+familiar with insects which walk on water, and imagination has no more
+difficulty in putting a man in place of the insect than it has in
+giving a man some of the attributes of a bird and making an angel of
+him; or in ascribing to him the ascensive tendencies of a balloon, as
+the "levitationists" do. Undoubtedly, there are very strong physical
+and biological arguments for thinking it extremely improbable that a
+man could be supported on the surface of the water as the insect is;
+or that his organisation could be compatible with the possession and
+use of wings; or that he could rise through the air without mechanical
+aid. Indeed, if we have any reason to believe that our present
+knowledge of the nature of things exhausts the possibilities of
+nature, we might properly say that the attributes of men are
+contradictory of walking on water, or floating in the air, and
+consequently that these acts are truly "impossible" for him. But it is
+sufficiently obvious, not only that we are at the beginning of our
+knowledge of nature, instead of having arrived at the end of it, but
+that the limitations of our faculties are such that we never can be in
+a position to set bounds to the possibilities of nature. We have
+knowledge of what is happening and of what has happened; of what will
+happen we have and can have no more than expectation, grounded on our
+more or less correct reading of past experience and prompted by the
+faith, begotten of that experience, that the order of nature in the
+future will resemble its order in the past.
+
+The same considerations apply to the other examples of supposed
+miraculous events. The change of water into wine undoubtedly implies a
+contradiction, and is assuredly "impossible," if we are permitted to
+assume that the "elementary bodies" of the chemists are, now and for
+ever, immutable. Not only, however, is a negative proposition of this
+kind incapable of proof, but modern chemistry is inclining towards the
+contrary doctrine. And if carbon can be got out of hydrogen or oxygen,
+the conversion of water into wine comes within range of scientific
+possibility--it becomes a mere question of molecular arrangement.
+
+As for virgin procreation, it is not only clearly imaginable, but
+modern biology recognises it as an everyday occurrence among some
+groups of animals. So with restoration to life after death. Certain
+animals, long as dry as mummies, and, to all appearance, as dead, when
+placed in proper conditions resume their vitality. It may be said that
+these creatures are not dead, but merely in a condition of suspended
+vitality. That, however, is only begging the question by making the
+incapacity for restoration to life part of the definition of death. In
+the absence of obvious lesions of some of the more important organs,
+it is no easy matter, even for experts, to say that an apparently dead
+man is incapable of restoration to life; and, in the recorded
+instances of such restoration, the want of any conclusive evidence
+that the man was dead is even more remarkable than the insufficiency
+of the testimony as to his coming to life again.
+
+It may be urged, however, that there is, at any rate, one miracle
+certified by all three of the Synoptic Gospels which really does
+"imply a contradiction," and is, therefore, "impossible" in the
+strictest sense of the word. This is the well-known story of the
+feeding of several thousand men, to the complete satisfaction of their
+hunger, by the distribution of a few loaves and fishes among them; the
+wondrousness of this already somewhat surprising performance being
+intensified by the assertion that the quantity of the fragments of the
+meal, left over, amounted to much more than the original store.
+
+Undoubtedly, if the operation is stated in its most general form; if
+it is to be supposed that a certain quantity, or magnitude, was
+divided into many more parts than the whole contained; and that, after
+the subtraction of several thousands of such parts, the magnitude of
+the remainder amounted to more than the original magnitude, there does
+seem to be an _� priori_ difficulty about accepting the proposition,
+seeing that it appears to be contradictory of the senses which we
+attach to the words "whole" and "parts" respectively. But this
+difficulty is removed if we reflect that we are not, in this case,
+dealing with magnitude in the abstract, or with "whole" and "parts" in
+their mathematical sense, but with concrete things, many of which are
+known to possess the power of growing, or increasing in magnitude.
+They thus furnish us with a conception of growth which we may, in
+imagination, apply to loaves and fishes; just as we may, in
+imagination, apply the idea of wings to the idea of a man. It must be
+admitted that a number of sheep might be fed on a pasture, and yet
+there might be more grass on the pasture, when the sheep left it, than
+there was at first. We may generalise this and other such facts into a
+perfectly definite conception of the increase of food in excess of
+consumption; which thus becomes a possibility, the limitations of
+which are to be discovered only by experience. Therefore, if it is
+asserted that cooked food has been made to grow in excess of rapid
+consumption, that statement cannot logically be rejected as an _�
+priori_ impossibility, however improbable experience of the
+capabilities of cooked food may justify us in holding it to be.
+
+On the strength of this undeniable improbability, however, we not only
+have a right to demand, but are morally bound to require, strong
+evidence in its favour before we even take it into serious
+consideration. But what is the evidence in this case? It is merely
+that of those three books,[48] which also concur in testifying to the
+truth of the monstrous legend of the herd of swine. In these three
+books, there are five accounts of a "miraculous feeding," which fall
+into two groups. Three of the stories, obviously derived from some
+common source, state that five loaves and two fishes sufficed to feed
+five thousand persons, and that twelve baskets of fragments remained
+over. In the two others, also obviously derived from a common source,
+distinct from the preceding, seven loaves and a few small fishes are
+distributed to four thousand persons, and seven baskets of fragments
+are left.
+
+If we were dealing with secular records, I suppose no candid and
+competent student of history would entertain much doubt that the
+originals of the three stories and of the two are themselves merely
+divergent versions of some primitive story which existed before the
+three Synoptic gospels were compiled out of the body of traditions
+current about Jesus. This view of the case, however, is incompatible
+with a belief in the historical accuracy of the first and second
+gospels.[49] For these agree in making Jesus himself speak of both the
+"four thousand" and the "five thousand" miracle. "When I brake the
+five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken
+pieces took ye up? They say unto him, twelve. And when the seven among
+the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?
+And they say unto him, seven."
+
+Thus we are face to face with a dilemma the way of escape from which
+is not obvious. Either the "four thousand" and the "five thousand"
+stories are both historically true, and describe two separate events;
+or the first and second gospels testify to the very words of a
+conversation between Jesus and his disciples which cannot have been
+uttered.
+
+My choice between these alternatives is determined by no _� priori_
+speculations about the possibility or impossibility of such events as
+the feeding of the four or of the five thousand. But I ask myself the
+question, What evidence ought to be produced before I could feel
+justified in saying that I believed such an event to have occurred?
+That question is very easily answered. Proof must be given (1) of the
+weight of the loaves and fishes at starting; (2) of the distribution
+to 4-5,000 persons, without any additional supply, of this quantity
+and quality of food; (3) of the satisfaction of these people's
+appetites; (4) of the weight and quality of the fragments gathered up
+into the baskets. Whatever my present notions of probability and
+improbability may be, satisfactory testimony under these four heads
+would lead me to believe that they were erroneous; and I should accept
+the so-called miracle as a new and unexpected example of the
+possibilities of nature.
+
+But when, instead of such evidence, nothing is produced but two sets
+of discrepant stories, originating nobody knows how or when, among
+persons who could believe as firmly in devils which enter pigs, I
+confess that my feeling is one of astonishment that any one should
+expect a reasonable man to take such testimony seriously.
+
+I am anxious to bring about a clear understanding of the difference
+between "impossibilities" and "improbabilities," because mistakes on
+this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesiastical apologists of
+the type of the late Cardinal Newman; acute sophists, who think it
+fitting to employ their intellects, as burglars employ dark lanterns
+for the discovery of other people's weak places, while they carefully
+keep the light away from their own position.
+
+When it is rightly stated, the Agnostic view of "miracles" is, in my
+judgment, unassailable. We are _not_ justifiable in the _� priori_
+assertion that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to
+us, cannot change. In arguing about the miraculous, the assumption is
+illegitimate, because it involves the whole point in dispute.
+Furthermore, it is an assumption which takes us beyond the range of
+our faculties. Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us
+in anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the
+present and future. We find, practically, that expectations, based
+upon careful observations of events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We
+should be foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through
+life. But, for all that, our highest and surest generalisations remain
+on the level of justifiable expectations; that is, very high
+probabilities. For my part, I am unable to conceive of an intelligence
+shaped on the model of that of man, however superior it might be,
+which could be any better off than our own in this respect; that is,
+which could possess logically justifiable grounds for certainty about
+the constancy of the order of things, and therefore be in a position
+to declare that such and such events are impossible. Some of the old
+mythologies recognised this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and
+Odin, there lay the unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or
+other, would crumple up them and the world they ruled to give place to
+a new order of things.
+
+I sincerely hope that I shall not be accused of Pyrrhonism, or of any
+desire to weaken the foundations of rational certainty. I have merely
+desired to point out that rational certainty is one thing, and talk
+about "impossibilities," or "violation of natural laws," another.
+Rational certainty rests upon two grounds--the one that the evidence
+in favour of a given statement is as good as it can be; the other that
+such evidence is plainly insufficient. In the former case, the
+statement is to be taken as true, in the latter as untrue; until
+something arises to modify the verdict, which, however properly
+reached, may always be more or less wrong, the best information being
+never complete, and the best reasoning being liable to fallacy.
+
+To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual
+affairs, would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life,
+with due thought for the morrow, because no man can be sure he will be
+alive an hour hence. Such are the conditions imposed upon us by
+nature, and we have to make the best of them. And I think that the
+greatest mistake those of us who are interested in the progress of
+free thought can make is to overlook these limitations, and to deck
+ourselves with the dogmatic feathers which are the traditional
+adornment of our opponents. Let us be content with rational certainty,
+leaving irrational certainties to those who like to muddle their minds
+with them. I cannot see my way to say that demons are impossibilities;
+but I am not more certain about anything, than I am that the evidence
+tendered in favour of the demonology, of which the Gadarene story is a
+typical example, is utterly valueless. I cannot see my way to say that
+it is "impossible" that the hunger of thousands of men should be
+satisfied out of the food supplied by half-a-dozen loaves and a fish
+or two; but it seems to me monstrous that I should be asked to believe
+it on the faith of the five stories which testify to such an
+occurrence. It is true that the position that miracles are
+"impossible" cannot be sustained. But I know of nothing which calls
+upon me to qualify the grave verdict of Hume: "There is not to be
+found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of
+men, of such unquestioned goodness, education, and learning as to
+secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted
+integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to
+deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind
+as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any
+falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a
+public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render
+the detection unavoidable: _all which circumstances are requisite to
+give us a full assurance in the testimony of men_."[50]
+
+     The preceding paper called forth the following criticism
+     signed "Agnosco," to which I append my reply:--
+
+     While agreeing generally with Professor Huxley's remarks
+     respecting miracles, in "The Agnostic Annual for 1892," it
+     has seemed to me that one of his arguments at least requires
+     qualification. The Professor, in maintaining that so-called
+     miraculous events are possible, although the evidence
+     adduced is not sufficient to render them probable, refers to
+     the possibility of changing water into wine by molecular
+     recomposition. He tells us that, "if carbon can be got out
+     of hydrogen or oxygen, the conversion of water into wine
+     comes within range of scientific possibility." But in
+     maintaining that miracles (so-called) have a _prospective_
+     possibility, Professor Huxley loses sight--at least, so it
+     appears to me--of the question of their _retrospective_
+     possibility. For, if it requires a certain degree of
+     knowledge and experience, yet far from having been attained,
+     to perform those acts which have been called miraculous, it
+     is not only improbable, but impossible likewise, that they
+     should have been done by men whose knowledge and experience
+     were considerably less than our own. It has seemed to me, in
+     fact, that this question of the retrospective possibility of
+     miracles is more important to us Rationalists, and, for the
+     matter of that, to Christians also, than the question of
+     their prospective possibility, with which Professor Huxley's
+     article mainly deals. Perhaps the Professor himself could
+     help those of us who think so, by giving us his opinion.
+
+     I am not sure that I fully appreciate the point raised by
+     "Agnosco," nor the distinction between the prospective and
+     the retrospective "possibility" of such a miracle as the
+     conversion of water into wine. If we may contemplate such an
+     event as "possible" in London in the year 1900, it must, in
+     the same sense, have been "possible" in the year 30 (or
+     thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I
+     shall take great interest in the announcement of the
+     performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and,
+     if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall
+     accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without
+     hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing
+     the Cana story than I had before; simply because the
+     evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it
+     is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing.
+     To leave the safe ground of "no evidence" for speculations
+     about impossibilities, consequent upon the want of
+     scientific knowledge of the supposed workers of miracles,
+     appears to me to be a mistake; especially in view of the
+     orthodox contention that they possessed supernatural power
+     and supernatural knowledge. T.H. HUXLEY.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [46] 1889-1891. See the next Essay (VII) and those which
+          follow it.
+
+     [47] _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_, p. 5;
+          1748. The passage is cited and discussed in my
+          _Hume_, pp. 132, 133.
+
+     [48] The story in John vi. 5-14 is obviously derived from
+          the "five thousand" narrative of the Synoptics.
+
+     [49] Matthew xvi. 5-12; Mark viii. 14-21.
+
+     [50] Hume, _Inquiry_, sec. X., part ii.
+
+
+
+
+VII: AGNOSTICISM
+
+[1889]
+
+
+Within the last few months, the public has received much and varied
+information on the subject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their
+future. Agnosticism exercised the orators of the Church Congress at
+Manchester.[51] It has been furnished with a set of "articles" fewer,
+but not less rigid, and certainly not less consistent than the
+thirty-nine; its nature has been analysed, and its future severely
+predicted by the most eloquent of that prophetical school whose Samuel
+is Auguste Comte. It may still be a question, however, whether the
+public is as much the wiser as might be expected, considering all the
+trouble that has been taken to enlighten it. Not only are the three
+accounts of the agnostic position sadly out of harmony with one
+another, but I propose to show cause for my belief that all three
+must be seriously questioned by any one who employs the term
+"agnostic" in the sense in which it was originally used. The learned
+Principal of King's College, who brought the topic of Agnosticism
+before the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of settling the
+business:--
+
+     But if this be so, for a man to urge, as an escape from this
+     article of belief, that he has no means of a scientific
+     knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is
+     irrelevant. His difference from Christians lies not in the
+     fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he
+     does not believe the authority on which they are stated. He
+     may prefer to call himself an Agnostic; but his real name is
+     an older one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an
+     unbeliever. The word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant
+     significance. Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and
+     it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say
+     plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.[52]
+
+So much of Dr. Wace's address either explicitly or implicitly concerns
+me, that I take upon myself to deal with it; but, in so doing, it must
+be understood that I speak for myself alone. I am not aware that there
+is any sect of Agnostics; and if there be, I am not its acknowledged
+prophet or pope. I desire to leave to the Comtists the entire monopoly
+of the manufacture of imitation ecclesiasticism.
+
+Let us calmly and dispassionately consider Dr. Wace's appreciation of
+agnosticism. The agnostic, according to his view, is a person who says
+he has no means of attaining a scientific knowledge of the unseen
+world or of the future; by which somewhat loose phraseology Dr. Wace
+presumably means the theological unseen world and future. I cannot
+think this description happy, either in form or substance, but for the
+present it may pass. Dr. Wace continues, that it is not "his
+difference from Christians." Are there then any Christians who say
+that they know nothing about the unseen world and the future? I was
+ignorant of the fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of
+a professional theologian, and I proceed to Dr. Wace's next
+proposition.
+
+The real state of the case, then, is that the agnostic "does not
+believe the authority" on which "these things" are stated, which
+authority is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fashioned "infidel" who
+is afraid to own to his right name. As "Presbyter is priest writ
+large," so is "agnostic" the mere Greek equivalent for the Latin
+"infidel." There is an attractive simplicity about this solution of
+the problem; and it has that advantage of being somewhat offensive to
+the persons attacked, which is so dear to the less refined sort of
+controversialist. The agnostic says, "I cannot find good evidence that
+so and so is true." "Ah," says his adversary, seizing his opportunity,
+"then you declare that Jesus Christ was untruthful, for he said so and
+so;" a very telling method of rousing prejudice. But suppose that the
+value of the evidence as to what Jesus may have said and done, and as
+to the exact nature and scope of his authority, is just that which the
+agnostic finds it most difficult to determine. If I venture to doubt
+that the Duke of Wellington gave the command "Up, Guards, and at 'em!"
+at Waterloo, I do not think that even Dr. Wace would accuse me of
+disbelieving the Duke. Yet it would be just as reasonable to do this
+as to accuse any one of denying what Jesus said, before the
+preliminary question as to what he did say is settled.
+
+Now, the question as to what Jesus really said and did is strictly a
+scientific problem, which is capable of solution by no other methods
+than those practised by the historian and the literary critic. It is a
+problem of immense difficulty, which has occupied some of the best
+heads in Europe for the last century; and it is only of late years
+that their investigations have begun to converge towards one
+conclusion.[53]
+
+That kind of faith which Dr. Wace describes and lauds is of no use
+here. Indeed, he himself takes pains to destroy its evidential value.
+
+"What made the Mahommedan world? Trust and faith in the declarations
+and assurances of Mahommed. And what made the Christian world? Trust
+and faith in the declarations and assurances of Jesus Christ and His
+Apostles" (l.c. p. 253). The triumphant tone of this imaginary
+catechism leads me to suspect that its author has hardly appreciated
+its full import. Presumably, Dr. Wace regards Mahommed as an
+unbeliever, or, to use the term which he prefers, infidel; and
+considers that his assurances have given rise to a vast delusion which
+has led, and is leading, millions of men straight to everlasting
+punishment. And this being so, the "Trust and faith" which have "made
+the Mahommedan world," in just the same sense as they have "made the
+Christian world," must be trust and faith in falsehoods. No man who
+has studied history, or even attended to the occurrences of everyday
+life, can doubt the enormous practical value of trust and faith; but
+as little will he be inclined to deny that this practical value has
+not the least relation to the reality of the objects of that trust and
+faith. In examples of patient constancy of faith and of unswerving
+trust, the "Acta Martyrum" do not excel the annals of Babism.[54]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The discussion upon which we have now entered goes so thoroughly to
+the root of the whole matter; the question of the day is so
+completely, as the author of "Robert Elsmere" says, the value of
+testimony, that I shall offer no apology for following it out somewhat
+in detail; and, by way of giving substance to the argument, I shall
+base what I have to say upon a case, the consideration of which lies
+strictly within the province of natural science, and of that
+particular part of it known as the physiology and pathology of the
+nervous system.
+
+I find, in the second Gospel (chap. v.), a statement, to all
+appearance intended to have the same evidential value as any other
+contained in that history. It is the well-known story of the devils
+who were cast out of a man, and ordered, or permitted, to enter into a
+herd of swine, to the great loss and damage of the innocent Gerasene,
+or Gadarene, pig owners. There can be no doubt that the narrator
+intends to convey to his readers his own conviction that this casting
+out and entering in were effected by the agency of Jesus of Nazareth;
+that, by speech and action, Jesus enforced this conviction; nor does
+any inkling of the legal and moral difficulties of the case manifest
+itself.
+
+On the other hand, everything that I know of physiological and
+pathological science leads me to entertain a very strong conviction
+that the phenomena ascribed to possession are as purely natural as
+those which constitute small-pox; everything that I know of
+anthropology leads me to think that the belief in demons and
+demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once universal
+superstition, and that its persistence, at the present time, is pretty
+much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence,
+and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails.
+Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the wanton
+destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of evil
+example. Again, the study of history, and especially of that of the
+fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, leaves no shadow of
+doubt on my mind that the belief in the reality of possession and of
+witchcraft, justly based, alike by Catholics and Protestants, upon
+this and innumerable other passages in both the Old and New
+Testaments, gave rise, through the special influence of Christian
+ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions and judicial murders
+of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and children. And
+when I reflect that the record of a plain and simple declaration upon
+such an occasion as this, that the belief in witchcraft and possession
+is wicked nonsense, would have rendered the long agony of medi�val
+humanity impossible, I am prompted to reject, as dishonouring, the
+supposition that such declaration was withheld out of condescension to
+popular error.
+
+"Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man" (Mark v. 8),[55] are
+the words attributed to Jesus. If I declare, as I have no hesitation
+in doing, that I utterly disbelieve in the existence of "unclean
+spirits," and, consequently, in the possibility of their "coming
+forth" out of a man, I suppose that Dr. Wace will tell me I am
+disregarding the testimony "of our Lord." For, if these words were
+really used, the most resourceful of reconcilers can hardly venture to
+affirm that they are compatible with a disbelief "in these things." As
+the learned and fair-minded, as well as orthodox, Dr. Alexander
+remarks, in an editorial note to the article "Demoniacs," in the
+"Biblical Cyclop�dia" (vol. i. p. 664, note):--
+
+     ... On the lowest grounds on which our Lord and His Apostles
+     can be placed they must, at least, be regarded as _honest_
+     men. Now, though honest speech does not require that words
+     should be used always and only in their etymological sense,
+     it does require that they should not be used so as to affirm
+     what the speaker knows to be false. Whilst, therefore, our
+     Lord and His Apostles might use the word [Greek: daimonizesthai],
+     or the phrase, [Greek: daimonion echein] as a popular
+     description of certain diseases, without giving in to the
+     belief which lay at the source of such a mode of expression,
+     they could not speak of demons entering into a man, or being
+     cast out of him, without pledging themselves to the belief of
+     an actual possession of the man by the demons. (Campbell,
+     _Prel. Diss._ vi. 1, 10.) If, consequently, they did not hold
+     this belief, they spoke not as honest men.
+
+The story which we are considering does not rest on the authority of
+the second Gospel alone. The third confirms the second, especially in
+the matter of commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man
+(Luke viii. 29); and, although the first Gospel either gives a
+different version of the same story, or tells another of like kind,
+the essential point remains: "If thou cast us out, send us away into
+the herd of swine. And He said unto them: Go!" (Matt. viii. 31, 32).
+
+If the concurrent testimony of the three synoptics, then, is really
+sufficient to do away with all rational doubt as to a matter of fact
+of the utmost practical and speculative importance--belief or
+disbelief in which may affect, and has affected, men's lives and their
+conduct towards other men, in the most serious way--then I am bound to
+believe that Jesus implicitly affirmed himself to possess a "knowledge
+of the unseen world," which afforded full confirmation of the belief
+in demons and possession current among his contemporaries. If the
+story is true, the medi�val theory of the invisible world may be, and
+probably is, quite correct; and the witch-finders, from Sprenger to
+Hopkins and Mather, are much-maligned men.
+
+On the other hand, humanity, noting the frightful consequences of this
+belief; common sense, observing the futility of the evidence on which
+it is based, in all cases that have been properly investigated;
+science, more and more seeing its way to inclose all the phenomena of
+so-called "possession" within the domain of pathology, so far as they
+are not to be relegated to that of the police--all these powerful
+influences concur in warning us, at our peril, against accepting the
+belief without the most careful scrutiny of the authority on which it
+rests.
+
+I can discern no escape from this dilemma: either Jesus said what he
+is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former case, it is
+inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the "unseen
+world" should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon
+the authority of the synoptic Gospels. If their report on a matter of
+such stupendous and far-reaching practical import as this is
+untrustworthy, how can we be sure of its trustworthiness in other
+cases? The favourite "earth," in which the hard-pressed reconciler
+takes refuge, that the Bible does not profess to teach science,[56] is
+stopped in this instance. For the question of the existence of demons
+and of possession by them, though it lies strictly within the province
+of science, is also of the deepest moral and religious significance.
+If physical and mental disorders are caused by demons, Gregory of
+Tours and his contemporaries rightly considered that relics and
+exorcists were more useful than doctors; the gravest questions arise
+as to the legal and moral responsibilities of persons inspired by
+demoniacal impulses; and our whole conception of the universe and of
+our relations to it becomes totally different from what it would be on
+the contrary hypothesis.
+
+The theory of life of an average medi�val Christian was as different
+from that of an average nineteenth-century Englishman as that of a
+West African negro is now, in these respects. The modern world is
+slowly, but surely, shaking off these and other monstrous survivals of
+savage delusions; and, whatever happens, it will not return to that
+wallowing in the mire. Until the contrary is proved, I venture to
+doubt whether, at this present moment, any Protestant theologian, who
+has a reputation to lose, will say that he believes the Gadarene
+story.
+
+The choice then lies between discrediting those who compiled the
+Gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple
+souls, thought to honour by preserving such traditions of the exercise
+of his authority over Satan's invisible world. This is the dilemma. No
+deep scholarship, nothing but a knowledge of the revised version (on
+which it is to be supposed all that mere scholarship can do has been
+done), with the application thereto of the commonest canons of common
+sense, is needful to enable us to make a choice between its
+alternatives. It is hardly doubtful that the story, as told in the
+first Gospel, is merely a version of that told in the second and
+third. Nevertheless, the discrepancies are serious and irreconcilable;
+and, on this ground alone, a suspension of judgment, at the least, is
+called for. But there is a great deal more to be said. From the dawn
+of scientific biblical criticism until the present day, the evidence
+against the long-cherished notion that the three synoptic Gospels are
+the works of three independent authors, each prompted by Divine
+inspiration, has steadily accumulated, until, at the present time,
+there is no visible escape from the conclusion that each of the three
+is a compilation consisting of a groundwork common to all three--the
+threefold tradition; and of a superstructure, consisting, firstly, of
+matter common to it with one of the others, and, secondly, of matter
+special to each. The use of the terms "groundwork" and "superstructure"
+by no means implies that the latter must be of later date than the
+former. On the contrary, some parts of it may be, and probably are,
+older than some parts of the groundwork.[57]
+
+The story of the Gadarene swine belongs to the groundwork; at least,
+the essential part of it, in which the belief in demoniac possession
+is expressed, does; and therefore the compilers of the first, second,
+and third Gospels, whoever they were, certainly accepted that belief
+(which, indeed, was universal among both Jews and pagans at that
+time), and attributed it to Jesus.
+
+What, then, do we know about the originator, or originators, of this
+groundwork--of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in
+Paley's phrase) agree upon--that we should allow their mere statements
+to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of
+exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad to
+be able to render to their Master?
+
+Absolutely nothing.[58] There is no proof, nothing more than a fair
+presumption, that any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in
+which we find it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the
+second century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the
+events recorded. And, between that time and the date of the oldest
+extant manuscripts of the Gospels, there is no telling what additions
+and alterations and interpolations may have been made. It may be said
+that this is all mere speculation, but it is a good deal more. As
+competent scholars and honest men, our revisers have felt compelled to
+point out that such things have happened even since the date of the
+oldest known manuscripts. The oldest two copies of the second Gospel
+end with the 8th verse of the 16th chapter; the remaining twelve
+verses are spurious, and it is noteworthy that the maker of the
+addition has not hesitation to introduce a speech in which Jesus
+promises his disciples that "in My name shall they cast out devils."
+
+The other passage "rejected to the margin" is still more instructive.
+It is that touching apologue, with its profound ethical sense, of the
+woman taken in adultery--which, if internal evidence were an
+infallible guide, might well be affirmed to be a typical example of
+the teachings of Jesus. Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly, "Most of
+the ancient authorities emit John vii. 53-viii. 11." Now let any
+reasonable man ask himself this question. If, after an approximate
+settlement of the canon of the New Testament, and even later than the
+fourth and fifth centuries, literary fabricators had the skill and the
+audacity to make such additions and interpolations as these, what may
+they have done when no one had thought of a canon; when oral
+tradition, still unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such
+written records as may have existed in the latter portion of the first
+century? Or, to take the other alternative, if those who gradually
+settled the canon did not know of the existence of the oldest codices
+which have come down to us; or if, knowing them, they rejected their
+authority, what is to be thought of their competency as critics of the
+text?
+
+People who object to free criticism of the Christian Scriptures forget
+that they are what they are in virtue of very free criticism; unless
+the advocates of inspiration are prepared to affirm that the majority
+of influential ecclesiastics during several centuries were safeguarded
+against error. For, even granting that some books of the period were
+inspired, they were certainly few amongst many; and those who selected
+the canonical books, unless they themselves were also inspired, must
+be regarded in the light of mere critics, and, from the evidence they
+have left of their intellectual habits, very uncritical critics. When
+one thinks that such delicate questions as those involved fell into
+the hands of men like Papias (who believed in the famous millenarian
+grape story); of Iren�us with his "reasons" for the existence of only
+four Gospels; and of such calm and dispassionate judges as Tertullian,
+with his "Credo quia impossibile": the marvel is that the selection
+which constitutes our New Testament is as free as it is from obviously
+objectionable matter. The apocryphal Gospels certainly deserve to be
+apocryphal; but one may suspect that a little more critical
+discrimination would have enlarged the Apocrypha not inconsiderably.
+
+At this point a very obvious objection arises and deserves full and
+candid consideration. It may be said that critical scepticism carried
+to the length suggested is historical pyrrhonism; that if we are
+altogether to discredit an ancient or a modern historian, because he
+has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as well to give up
+paying any attention to history. It may be said, and with great
+justice, that Eginhard's "Life of Charlemagne" is none the less
+trustworthy because of the astounding revelation of credulity, of lack
+of judgment, and even of respect for the eighth commandment, which he
+has unconsciously made in the "History of the Translation of the
+Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and Paul." Or, to go no further back than
+the last number of the _Nineteenth Century_, surely that excellent
+lady, Miss Strickland, is not to be refused all credence, because of
+the myth about the second James's remains which she seems to have
+unconsciously invented.
+
+Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man alive
+whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent were proof
+that he had never invented and promulgated a myth. In the minds of all
+of us there are little places here and there, like the indistinguishable
+spots on a rock which give foothold to moss or stonecrop; on which, if
+the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to grow, without in the least
+degree affecting our accuracy or truthfulness elsewhere. Sir Walter
+Scott knew that he could not repeat a story without, as he said,
+"giving it a new hat and stick." Most of us differ from Sir Walter
+only in not knowing about this tendency of the mythopoeic faculty to
+break out unnoticed. But it is also perfectly true that the mythopoeic
+faculty is not equally active in all minds, nor in all regions and
+under all conditions of the same mind. David Hume was certainly not so
+liable to temptation as the Venerable Bede, or even as some recent
+historians who could be mentioned; and the most imaginative of
+debtors, if he owes five pounds, never makes an obligation to pay a
+hundred out of it. The rule of common sense is _prim� facie_ to trust
+a witness in all matters, in which neither his self-interest, his
+passions, his prejudices, nor that love of the marvellous, which is
+inherent to a greater or less degree in all mankind, are strongly
+concerned; and, when they are involved, to require corroborative
+evidence in exact proportion to the contravention of probability by
+the thing testified.
+
+Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably
+sceptical, if I say that the existence of demons who can be
+transferred from a man to a pig, does thus contravene probability. Let
+me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no _� priori_ objection to
+offer. There are physical things, such as _t�ni�_ and _trichin�_,
+which can be transferred from men to pigs, and _vice vers�_, and which
+do undoubtedly produce most diabolical and deadly effects on both.
+For anything I can absolutely prove to the contrary, there may be
+spiritual things capable of the same transmigration, with like
+effects. Moreover I am bound to add that perfectly truthful persons,
+for whom I have the greatest respect, believe in stories about spirits
+of the present day, quite as improbable as that we are considering.
+
+So I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show cause why
+these transferable devils should not exist; nor can I deny that, not
+merely the whole Roman Church, but many Wacean "infidels" of no mean
+repute, do honestly and firmly believe that the activity of such like
+demonic beings is in full swing in this year of grace 1889.
+
+Nevertheless, as good Bishop Butler says, "probability is the guide of
+life;" and it seems to me that this is just one of the cases in which
+the canon of credibility and testimony, which I have ventured to lay
+down, has full force. So that, with the most entire respect for many
+(by no means for all) of our witnesses for the truth of demonology,
+ancient and modern, I conceive their evidence on this particular
+matter to be ridiculously insufficient to warrant their
+conclusion.[59]
+
+After what has been said I do not think that any sensible man, unless
+he happen to be angry, will accuse me of "contradicting the Lord and
+His Apostles" if I reiterate my total disbelief in the whole Gadarene
+story. But, if that story is discredited, all the other stories of
+demoniac possession fall under suspicion. And if the belief in demons
+and demoniac possession, which forms the sombre background of the
+whole picture of primitive Christianity, presented to us in the New
+Testament, is shaken, what is to be said, in any case, of the
+uncorroborated testimony of the Gospels with respect to "the unseen
+world"?
+
+I am not aware that I have been influenced by any more bias in regard
+to the Gadarene story than I have been in dealing with other cases of
+like kind the investigation of which has interested me. I was brought
+up in the strictest school of evangelical orthodoxy; and when I was
+old enough to think for myself, I started upon my journey of inquiry
+with little doubt about the general truth of what I had been taught;
+and with that feeling of the unpleasantness of being called an
+"infidel" which we are told, is so right and proper. Near my
+journey's end, I find myself in a condition of something more than
+mere doubt about these matters.
+
+In the course of other inquiries, I have had to do with fossil remains
+which looked quite plain at a distance, and became more and more
+indistinct as I tried to define their outline by close inspection.
+There was something there--something which, if I could win assurance
+about it, might mark a new epoch in the history of the earth; but,
+study as long as I might, certainty eluded my grasp. So had it been
+with me in my efforts to define the grand figure of Jesus as it lies
+in the primary strata of Christian literature. Is he the kindly,
+peaceful Christ depicted in the Catacombs? Or is he the stern Judge
+who frowns upon the altar of SS. Cosmas and Damianus? Or can he be
+rightly represented by the bleeding ascetic, broken down by physical
+pain, of too many medi�val pictures? Are we to accept the Jesus of the
+second, or the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, as the true Jesus? What did
+he really say and do; and how much that is attributed to him, in
+speech and action, is the embroidery of the various parties into which
+his followers tended to split themselves within twenty years of his
+death, when even the threefold tradition was only nascent?
+
+If any one will answer these questions for me with something more to
+the point than feeble talk about the "cowardice of agnosticism," I
+shall be deeply his debtor. Unless and until they are satisfactorily
+answered, I say of agnosticism in this matter, "_J'y suis, et j'y
+reste_."
+
+But, as we have seen, it is asserted that I have no business to call
+myself an agnostic; that, if I am not a Christian I am an infidel; and
+that I ought to call myself by that name of "unpleasant significance."
+Well, I do not care much what I am called by other people, and if I
+had at my side all those who, since the Christian era, have been
+called infidels by other folks, I could not desire better company. If
+these are my ancestors, I prefer, with the old Frank, to be with them
+wherever they are. But there are several points in Dr. Wace's
+contention which must be elucidated before I can even think of
+undertaking to carry out his wishes. I must, for instance, know what a
+Christian is. Now what is a Christian? By whose authority is the
+signification of that term defined? Is there any doubt that the
+immediate followers of Jesus, the "sect of the Nazarenes," were
+strictly orthodox Jews differing from other Jews not more than the
+Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes differed from one another;
+in fact, only in the belief that the Messiah, for whom the rest of
+their nation waited, had come? Was not their chief, "James, the
+brother of the Lord," reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and
+Nazarene? At the famous conference which, according to the Acts, took
+place at Jerusalem, does not James declare that "myriads" of Jews,
+who, by that time, had become Nazarenes, were "all zealous for the
+Law"? Was not the name of "Christian" first used to denote the
+converts to the doctrine promulgated by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch?
+Does the subsequent history of Christianity leave any doubt that, from
+this time forth, the "little rift within the lute" caused by the new
+teaching, developed, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, grew wider and
+wider, until the two types of doctrines irreconcilably diverged? Did
+not the primitive Nazarenism, or Ebionism, develop into the
+Nazarenism, and Ebionism, and Elkasaitism of later ages, and finally
+die out in obscurity and condemnation, as damnable heresy; while the
+younger doctrine throve and pushed out its shoots into that endless
+variety of sects, of which the three strongest survivors are the Roman
+and Greek Churches and modern Protestantism?
+
+Singular state of things! If I were to profess the doctrine which was
+held by "James, the brother of the Lord," and by every one of the
+"myriads" of his followers and co-religionists in Jerusalem up to
+twenty or thirty years after the Crucifixion (and one knows not how
+much later at Pella), I should be condemned, with unanimity, as an
+ebionising heretic by the Roman, Greek, and Protestant Churches! And,
+probably, this hearty and unanimous condemnation of the creed, held by
+those who were in the closest personal relation with their Lord, is
+almost the only point upon which they would be cordially of one mind.
+On the other hand, though I hardly dare imagine such a thing, I very
+much fear that the "pillars" of the primitive Hierosolymitan Church
+would have considered Dr. Wace an infidel. No one can read the famous
+second chapter of Galatians and the book of Revelation without seeing
+how narrow was even Paul's escape from a similar fate. And, if
+ecclesiastical history is to be trusted, the thirty-nine articles, be
+they right or wrong, diverge from the primitive doctrine of the
+Nazarenes vastly more than even Pauline Christianity did.
+
+But, further than this, I have great difficulty in assuring myself
+that even James, "the brother of the Lord," and his "myriads" of
+Nazarenes, properly represented the doctrines of their Master. For it
+is constantly asserted by our modern "pillars" that one of the chief
+features of the work of Jesus was the instauration of Religion by the
+abolition of what our sticklers for articles and liturgies, with,
+unconscious humour, call the narrow restrictions of the Law. Yet, if
+James knew this, how could the bitter controversy with Paul have
+arisen; and why did not one or the other side quote any of the various
+sayings of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels, which directly bear on the
+question--sometimes, apparently, in opposite directions?
+
+So, if I am asked to call myself an "infidel," I reply: To what
+doctrine do you ask me to be faithful? Is it that contained in the
+Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds? My firm belief is that the
+Nazarenes, say of the year 40, headed by James, would have stopped
+their ears and thought worthy of stoning the audacious man who
+propounded it to them. Is it contained in the so-called Apostle's
+Creed? I am pretty sure that even that would have created a
+recalcitrant commotion at Pella in the year 70, among the Nazarenes of
+Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers of Titus. And yet, if the
+unadulterated tradition of the teachings of "the Nazarene" were to be
+found anywhere, it surely should have been amidst those not very aged
+disciples who may have heard them as they were delivered.
+
+Therefore, however sorry I may be to be unable to demonstrate that, if
+necessary, I should not be afraid to call myself an "infidel," I
+cannot do it. "Infidel" is a term of reproach, which Christians and
+Mahommedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from
+them. If he had only thought of it, Dr. Wace might have used the term
+"miscreant," which, with the same etymological signification, has the
+advantage of being still more "unpleasant" to the persons to whom it
+is applied. But why should a man be expected to call himself a
+"miscreant" or an "infidel"? That St. Patrick "had two birthdays
+because he was a twin" is a reasonable and intelligible utterance
+beside that of the man who should declare himself to be an infidel on
+the ground of denying his own belief. It may be logically, if not
+ethically, defensible that a Christian should call a Mahommedan an
+infidel and _vice vers�_; but, on Dr. Wace's principles, both ought to
+call themselves infidels, because each applies the term to the other.
+
+Now I am afraid that all the Mahommedan world would agree in
+reciprocating that appellation to Dr. Wace himself. I once visited the
+Hazar Mosque, the great University of Mohammedanism, in Cairo, in
+ignorance of the fact that I was unprovided with proper authority. A
+swarm of angry undergraduates, as I suppose I ought to call them, came
+buzzing about me and my guide; and if I had known Arabic, I suspect
+that "dog of an infidel" would have been by no means the most
+"unpleasant" of the epithets showered upon me, before I could explain
+and apologise for the mistake. If I had had the pleasure of Dr. Wace's
+company on that occasion, the undiscriminative followers of the
+Prophet would, I am afraid, have made no difference between us; not
+even if they had known that he was the head of an orthodox Christian
+seminary. And I have not the smallest doubt that even one of the
+learned mollahs, if his grave courtesy would have permitted him to say
+anything offensive to men of another mode of belief, would have told
+us that he wondered we did not find it "very unpleasant" to disbelieve
+in the Prophet of Islam.
+
+From what precedes, I think it becomes sufficiently clear that Dr.
+Wace's account of the origin of the name of "Agnostic" is quite wrong.
+Indeed, I am bound to add that very slight effort to discover the
+truth would have convinced him that, as a matter of fact, the term
+arose otherwise. I am loath to go over an old story once more; but
+more than one object which I have in view will be served by telling it
+a little more fully than it has yet been told.
+
+Looking back nearly fifty years, I see myself as a boy, whose
+education has been interrupted, and who, intellectually, was left, for
+some years, altogether to his own devices. At that time, I was a
+voracious and omnivorous reader; a dreamer and speculator of the first
+water, well endowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and
+every subject, which is the blessed compensation of youth and
+inexperience. Among the books and essays, on all sorts of topics from
+metaphysics to heraldry, which I read at this time, two left indelible
+impressions on my mind. One was Guizot's "History of Civilization,"
+the other was Sir William Hamilton's essay "On the Philosophy of the
+Unconditioned," which I came upon, by chance, in an odd volume of the
+"Edinburgh Review." The latter was certainly strange reading for a
+boy, and I could not possibly have understood a great deal of it;[60]
+nevertheless, I devoured it with avidity, and it stamped upon my mind
+the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and important of
+questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers; and that
+the limitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, renders
+real answers to such questions, not merely actually impossible, but
+theoretically inconceivable.
+
+Philosophy and history having laid hold of me in this eccentric
+fashion, have never loosened their grip. I have no pretension to be an
+expert in either subject; but the turn for philosophical and
+historical reading, which rendered Hamilton and Guizot attractive to
+me, has not only filled many lawful leisure hours, and still more
+sleepless ones, with the repose of changed mental occupation, but has
+not unfrequently disputed my proper work-time with my liege lady,
+Natural Science. In this way I have found it possible to cover a good
+deal of ground in the territory of philosophy; and all the more easily
+that I have never cared much about A's or B's opinions, but have
+rather sought to know what answer he had to give to the questions I
+had to put to him--that of the limitation of possible knowledge being
+the chief. The ordinary examiner, with his "State the views of
+So-and-so," would have floored me at any time. If he had said what do
+_you_ think about any given problem, I might have got on fairly well.
+
+The reader who has had the patience to follow the enforced, but
+unwilling, egotism of this veritable history (especially if his
+studies have led him in the same direction), will now see why my mind
+steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant, so well
+stated by the latter in a sentence, which I have quoted elsewhere.
+
+"The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure
+reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an
+organon for the enlargement [of knowledge], but as a discipline for
+its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only the
+modest merit of preventing error."[61]
+
+When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I
+was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an
+idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I
+learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last,
+I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of
+these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of
+these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed
+from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain
+"gnosis,"--had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of
+existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong
+conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on
+my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that
+opinion. Like Dante,
+
+    Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
+      Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
+
+but, unlike Dante, I cannot add,
+
+    Che la diritta via era smarrita.
+
+On the contrary, I had, and have, the firmest conviction that I never
+left the "verace via"--the straight road; and that this road led
+nowhere else but into the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest.
+And though I have found leopards and lions in the path; though I have
+made abundant acquaintance with the hungry wolf, that "with privy paw
+devours apace and nothing said," as another great poet says of the
+ravening beast; and though no friendly spectre has even yet offered
+his guidance, I was, and am, minded to go straight on, until I either
+come out on the other side of the wood, or find there is no other
+side to it, at least, none attainable by me.
+
+This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place
+among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists,
+long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical
+Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was
+represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of
+my colleagues were _-ists_ of one sort or another; and, however kind
+and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to
+cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings
+which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap
+in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally
+elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived
+to be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as
+suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who
+professed to know so much about the very things of which I was
+ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our
+Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my
+great satisfaction, the term took; and when the _Spectator_ had stood
+godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people,
+that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course,
+completely lulled.
+
+That is the history of the origin of the terms "agnostic" and
+"agnosticism"; and it will be observed that it does not quite agree
+with the confident assertion of the reverend Principal of King's
+College, that "the adoption of the term agnostic is only an attempt to
+shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion" in relation to
+the Church and Christianity.[62]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last objection (I rejoice as much as my readers must do, that it
+is the last) which I have to take to Dr. Wace's deliverance before the
+Church Congress arises, I am sorry to say, on a question of morality.
+
+"It is, and it ought to be," authoritatively declares this official
+representative of Christian ethics, "an unpleasant thing for a man to
+have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ" (_l.c._
+p. 254).
+
+Whether it is so depends, I imagine, a good deal on whether the man
+was brought up in a Christian household or not. I do not see why it
+should be "unpleasant" for a Mahommedan or Buddhist to say so. But
+that "it ought to be" unpleasant for any man to say anything which he
+sincerely, and after due deliberation, believes, is, to my mind, a
+proposition of the most profoundly immoral character. I verily believe
+that the great good which has been effected in the world by
+Christianity has been largely counteracted by the pestilent doctrine
+on which all the Churches have insisted, that honest disbelief in
+their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offence, indeed a sin
+of the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future
+retribution as murder and robbery. If we could only see, in one view,
+the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the
+violations of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from
+this source along the course of the history of Christian nations, our
+worst imaginations of Hell would pale beside the vision.
+
+A thousand times, no! It ought _not_ to be unpleasant to say that
+which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is
+painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind
+in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed,
+without erecting a sad concomitant of human weakness into something to
+be admired and cherished. The bravest of soldiers often, and very
+naturally, "feel it unpleasant" to go into action; but a court-martial
+which did its duty would make short work of the officer who
+promulgated the doctrine that his men _ought_ to feel their duty
+unpleasant.
+
+I am very well aware, as I suppose most thoughtful people are in these
+times, that the process of breaking away from old beliefs is extremely
+unpleasant; and I am much disposed to think that the encouragement,
+the consolation, and the peace afforded to earnest believers in even
+the worst forms of Christianity are of great practical advantage to
+them. What deductions must be made from this gain on the score of the
+harm done to the citizen by the ascetic other-worldliness of logical
+Christianity; to the ruler, by the hatred, malice, and all
+uncharitableness of sectarian bigotry; to the legislator, by the
+spirit of exclusiveness and domination of those that count themselves
+pillars of orthodoxy; to the philosopher, by the restraints on the
+freedom of learning and teaching which every Church exercises, when it
+is strong enough; to the conscientious soul, by the introspective
+hunting after sins of the mint and cummin type, the fear of
+theological error, and the overpowering terror of possible damnation,
+which have accompanied the Churches like their shadow, I need not now
+consider; but they are assuredly not small. If agnostics lose heavily
+on the one side, they gain a good deal on the other. People who talk
+about the comforts of belief appear to forget its discomforts; they
+ignore the fact that the Christianity of the Churches is something
+more than faith in the ideal personality of Jesus, which they create
+for themselves, _plus_ so much as can be carried into practice,
+without disorganising civil society, of the maxims of the Sermon on
+the Mount. Trip in morals or in doctrine (especially in doctrine),
+without due repentance or retractation, or fail to get properly
+baptized before you die, and a _pl�biscite_ of the Christians of
+Europe, if they were true to their creeds, would affirm your
+everlasting damnation by an immense majority.
+
+Preachers, orthodox and heterodox, din into our ears that the world
+cannot get on without faith of some sort. There is a sense in which
+that is as eminently as obviously true; there is another, in which, in
+my judgment, it is as eminently as obviously false, and it seems to me
+that the hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to oscillate between the
+false and the true meanings, without being aware of the fact.
+
+It is quite true that the ground of every one of our actions, and the
+validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of faith,
+which leads us to take the experience of the past as a safe guide in
+our dealings with the present and the future. From the nature of
+ratiocination, it is obvious that the axioms, on which it is based,
+cannot be demonstrated by ratiocination. It is also a trite
+observation that, in the business of life, we constantly take the most
+serious action upon evidence of an utterly insufficient character. But
+it is surely plain that faith is not necessarily entitled to dispense
+with ratiocination because ratiocination cannot dispense with faith as
+a starting-point; and that because we are often obliged, by the
+pressure of events, to act on very bad evidence, it does not follow
+that it is proper to act on such evidence when the pressure is absent.
+
+The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that "faith is the
+assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen." In the
+authorised version, "substance" stands for "assurance," and "evidence"
+for "proving." The question of the exact meaning of the two words,
+[Greek: hypostasis] and [Greek: elegchos] affords a fine field of
+discussion for the scholar and the metaphysician. But I fancy we shall
+be not far from the mark if we take the writer to have had in his mind
+the profound psychological truth, that men constantly feel certain
+about things for which they strongly hope, but have no evidence, in
+the legal or logical sense of the word; and he calls this feeling
+"faith." I may have the most absolute faith that a friend has not
+committed the crime of which he is accused. In the early days of
+English history, if my friend could have obtained a few more
+compurgators of a like robust faith, he would have been acquitted. At
+the present day, if I tendered myself as a witness on that score, the
+judge would tell me to stand down, and the youngest barrister would
+smile at my simplicity. Miserable indeed is the man who has not such
+faith in some of his fellow-men--only less miserable than the man who
+allows himself to forget that such faith is not, strictly speaking,
+evidence; and when his faith is disappointed, as will happen now and
+again, turns Timon and blames the universe for his own blunders. And
+so, if a man can find a friend, the hypostasis of all his hopes, the
+mirror of his ethical ideal, in the Jesus of any, or all, of the
+Gospels, let him live by faith in that ideal. Who shall or can forbid
+him? But let him not delude himself with the notion that his faith is
+evidence of the objective reality of that in which he trusts. Such
+evidence is to be obtained only by the use of the methods of science,
+as applied to history and to literature, and it amounts at present to
+very little.
+
+It appears that Mr. Gladstone some time ago asked Mr. Laing if he
+could draw up a short summary of the negative creed; a body of
+negative propositions, which have so far been adopted on the negative
+side as to be what the Apostles' and other accepted creeds are on the
+positive; and Mr. Laing at once kindly obliged Mr. Gladstone with the
+desired articles--eight of them.
+
+If any one had preferred this request to me, I should have replied
+that, if he referred to agnostics, they have no creed; and, by the
+nature of the case, cannot have any. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a
+creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous
+application of a single principle. That principle is of great
+antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said,
+"Try all things, hold fast by that which is good;" it is the
+foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that
+every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in
+him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental
+axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In
+matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take
+you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In
+matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain
+which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the
+agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not
+be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may
+have in store for him.
+
+The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary
+according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the
+general condition of science. That which is unproven to-day may be
+proven by the help of new discoveries to-morrow. The only negative
+fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable
+limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to
+have the mind always open to conviction. Agnostics who never fail in
+carrying out their principles are, I am afraid, as rare as other
+people of whom the same consistency can be truthfully predicated. But,
+if you were to meet with such a phoenix and to tell him that you had
+discovered that two and two make five, he would patiently ask you to
+state your reasons for that conviction, and express his readiness to
+agree with you if he found them satisfactory. The apostolic
+injunction to "suffer fools gladly" should be the rule of life of a
+true agnostic. I am deeply conscious how far I myself fall short of
+this ideal, but it is my personal conception of what agnostics ought
+to be.
+
+However, as I began by stating, I speak only for myself; and I do not
+dream of anathematizing and excommunicating Mr. Laing. But, when I
+consider his creed and compare it with the Athanasian, I think I have
+on the whole a clearer conception of the meaning of the latter.
+"Polarity," in Article VIII, for example, is a word about which I
+heard a good deal in my youth, when "Naturphilosophie" was in fashion,
+and greatly did I suffer from it. For many years past, whenever I have
+met with "polarity" anywhere but in a discussion of some purely
+physical topic, such as magnetism, I have shut the book. Mr. Laing
+must excuse me if the force of habit was too much for me when I read
+his eighth article.
+
+And now, what is to be said to Mr. Harrison's remarkable deliverance
+"On the future of agnosticism "?[63] I would that it were not my
+business to say anything, for I am afraid I can say nothing which
+shall manifest my great personal respect for this able writer, and for
+the zeal and energy with which he ever and anon galvanises the weakly
+frame of Positivism until it looks, more than ever, like John Bunyan's
+Pope and Pagan rolled into one. There is a story often repeated, and I
+am afraid none the less mythical on that account, of a valiant and
+loud-voiced corporal in command of two full privates who, falling in
+with a regiment of the enemy in the dark, orders it to surrender under
+pain of instant annihilation by his force; and the enemy surrenders
+accordingly. I am always reminded of this tale when I read the
+positivist commands to the forces of Christianity and of Science; only
+the enemy show no more signs of intending to obey now than they have
+done any time these forty years.
+
+The allocution under consideration has a certain papal flavour. Mr.
+Harrison speaks with authority and not as one of the common scribes of
+the period. He knows not only what agnosticism is and how it has come
+about, but what will become of it. The agnostic is to content himself
+with being the precursor of the positivist. In his place, as a sort of
+navvy levelling the ground and cleansing it of such poor stuff as
+Christianity, he is a useful creature who deserves patting on the
+back, on condition that he does not venture beyond his last. But let
+not these scientific Sanballats presume that they are good enough to
+take part in the building of the Temple--they are mere Samaritans,
+doomed to die out in proportion as the Religion of Humanity is
+accepted by mankind. Well, if that is their fate, they have time to be
+cheerful. But let us hear Mr. Harrison's pronouncement of their doom.
+
+"Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion, an entirely
+negative stage, the point reached by physicists, a purely mental
+conclusion, with no relation to things social at all" (p. 154). I am
+quite dazed by this declaration. Are there, then, any "conclusions"
+that are not "purely mental"? Is there "no relation to things social"
+in "mental conclusions" which affect men's whole conception of life?
+Was that prince of agnostics, David Hume, particularly imbued with
+physical science? Supposing physical science to be non-existent, would
+not the agnostic principle, applied by the philologist and the
+historian, lead to exactly the same results? Is the modern more or
+less complete suspension of judgment as to the facts of the history of
+regal Rome, or the real origin of the Homeric poems, anything but
+agnosticism in history and in literature? And if so, how can
+agnosticism be the "mere negation of the physicist"?
+
+"Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion." No two people
+agree as to what is meant by the term "religion"; but if it means, as
+I think it ought to mean, simply the reverence and love for the
+ethical ideal, and the desire to realise that ideal in life, which
+every man ought to feel--then I say agnosticism has no more to do
+with it than it has to do with music or painting. If, on the other
+hand, Mr. Harrison, like most people, means by "religion" theology,
+then, in my judgment, agnosticism can be said to be a stage in its
+evolution, only as death may be said to be the final stage in the
+evolution of life.
+
+     When agnostic logic is simply one of the canons of thought,
+     agnosticism, as a distinctive faith, will have spontaneously
+     disappeared (p. 155).
+
+I can but marvel that such sentences as this, and those already
+quoted, should have proceeded from Mr. Harrison's pen. Does he really
+mean to suggest that agnostics have a logic peculiar to themselves?
+Will lie kindly help me out of my bewilderment when I try to think of
+"logic" being anything else than the canon (which, I believe, means
+rule) of thought? As to agnosticism being a distinctive faith, I have
+already shown that it cannot possibly be anything of the kind, unless
+perfect faith in logic is distinctive of agnostics; which, after all,
+it may be.
+
+     Agnosticism as a religious philosophy _per se_ rests on an
+     almost total ignoring of history and social evolution (p.
+     152).
+
+But neither _per se_ nor _per aliud_ has agnosticism (if I know
+anything about it) the least pretension to be a religious philosophy;
+so far from resting on ignorance of history, and that social evolution
+of which history is the account, it is and has been the inevitable
+result of the strict adherence to scientific methods by historical
+investigators. Our forefathers were quite confident about the
+existence of Romulus and Remus, of King Arthur, and of Hengist and
+Horsa. Most of us have become agnostics in regard to the reality of
+these worthies. It is a matter of notoriety of which Mr. Harrison, who
+accuses us all so freely of ignoring history, should not be ignorant,
+that the critical process which has shattered the foundations of
+orthodox Christian doctrine owes its origin, not to the devotees of
+physical science, but, before all, to Richard Simon, the learned
+French Oratorian, just two hundred years ago. I cannot find evidence
+that either Simon, or any one of the great scholars and critics of the
+eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who have continued Simon's work,
+had any particular acquaintance with physical science. I have already
+pointed out that Hume was independent of it. And certainly one of the
+most potent influences in the same direction, upon history in the
+present century, that of Grote, did not come from the physical side.
+Physical science, in fact, has had nothing directly to do with the
+criticism of the Gospels; it is wholly incompetent to furnish
+demonstrative evidence that any statement made in these histories is
+untrue. Indeed, modern physiology can find parallels in nature for
+events of apparently the most eminently supernatural kind recounted
+in some of those histories.
+
+It is a comfort to hear, upon Mr. Harrison's authority, that the laws
+of physical nature show no signs of becoming "less definite, less
+consistent, or less popular as time goes on" (p. 154). How a law of
+nature is to become indefinite, or "inconsistent," passes my poor
+powers of imagination. But with universal suffrage and the coach-dog
+theory of premiership in full view; the theory, I mean, that the whole
+duty of a political chief is to look sharp for the way the social
+coach is driving, and then run in front and bark loud--as if being the
+leading noise-maker and guiding were the same things--it is truly
+satisfactory to me to know that the laws of nature are increasing in
+popularity. Looking at recent developments of the policy which is said
+to express the great heart of the people, I have had my doubts of the
+fact; and my love for my fellow-countrymen has led me to reflect, with
+dread, on what will happen to them, if any of the laws of nature ever
+become so unpopular in their eyes, as to be voted down by the
+transcendent authority of universal suffrage. If the legion of demons,
+before they set out on their journey in the swine, had had time to
+hold a meeting and to resolve unanimously "That the law of gravitation
+is oppressive and ought to be repealed," I am afraid it would have
+made no sort of difference to the result, when their two thousand
+unwilling porters were once launched down the steep slopes of the
+fatal shore of Gennesaret.
+
+     The question of the place of religion as an element of human
+     nature, as a force of human society, its origin, analysis,
+     and functions, has never been considered at all from an
+     agnostic point of view (p. 152).
+
+I doubt not that Mr. Harrison knows vastly more about history than I
+do; in fact, he tells the public that some of my friends and I have
+had no opportunity of occupying ourselves with that subject. I do not
+like to contradict any statement which Mr. Harrison makes on his own
+authority; only, if I may be true to my agnostic principles, I humbly
+ask how he has obtained assurance on this head. I do not profess to
+know anything about the range of Mr. Harrison's studies; but as he has
+thought it fitting to start the subject, I may venture to point out
+that, on evidence adduced, it might be equally permissible to draw the
+conclusion that Mr. Harrison's other labours have not allowed him to
+acquire that acquaintance with the methods and results of physical
+science, or with the history of philosophy, or of philological and
+historical criticism, which is essential to any one who desires to
+obtain a right understanding of agnosticism. Incompetence in
+philosophy, and in all branches of science except mathematics, is the
+well-known mental characteristic of the founder of positivism.
+Faithfulness in disciples is an admirable quality in itself; the pity
+is that it not unfrequently leads to the imitation of the weaknesses
+as well as of the strength of the master. It is only such
+over-faithfulness which can account for a "strong mind really
+saturated with the historical sense" (p. 153) exhibiting the
+extraordinary forgetfulness of the historical fact of the existence of
+David Hume implied by the assertion that
+
+     it would be difficult to name a single known agnostic who
+     has given to history anything like the amount of thought and
+     study which he brings to a knowledge of the physical world
+     (p. 153).
+
+Whoso calls to mind what I may venture to term the bright side of
+Christianity--that ideal of manhood, with its strength and its
+patience, its justice and its pity for human frailty, its helpfulness
+to the extremity of self-sacrifice, its ethical purity and nobility,
+which apostles have pictured, in which armies of martyrs have placed
+their unshakable faith, and whence obscure men and women, like
+Catherine of Sienna and John Knox, have derived the courage to rebuke
+popes and kings--is not likely to underrate the importance of the
+Christian faith as a factor in human history, or to doubt that if that
+faith should prove to be incompatible with our knowledge, or necessary
+want of knowledge, some other hypostasis of men's hopes, genuine
+enough and worthy enough to replace it, will arise. But that the
+incongruous mixture of bad science with eviscerated papistry, out of
+which Comte manufactured the positivist religion, will be the heir of
+the Christian ages, I have too much respect for the humanity of the
+future to believe. Charles the Second told his brother, "They will not
+kill me, James, to make you king." And if critical science is
+remorselessly destroying the historical foundations of the noblest
+ideal of humanity which mankind have yet worshipped, it is little
+likely to permit the pitiful reality to climb into the vacant shrine.
+
+That a man should determine to devote himself to the service of
+humanity--including intellectual and moral self-culture under that
+name; that this should be, in the proper sense of the word, his
+religion--is not only an intelligible, but, I think, a laudable
+resolution. And I am greatly disposed to believe that it is the only
+religion which will prove itself to be unassailably acceptable so long
+as the human race endures. But when the Comtist asks me to worship
+"Humanity"--that is to say, to adore the generalised conception of men
+as they ever have been and probably ever will be--I must reply that I
+could just as soon bow down and worship the generalised conception of
+a "wilderness of apes." Surely we are not going back to the days of
+Paganism, when individual men were deified, and the hard good sense of
+a dying Vepasian could prompt the bitter jest, "Ut puto Deus fio." No
+divinity doth hedge a modern man, be he even a sovereign ruler. Nor is
+there any one, except a municipal magistrate, who is officially
+declared worshipful. But if there is no spark of worship-worthy
+divinity in the individual twigs of humanity, whence comes that
+godlike splendour which the Moses of Positivism fondly imagines to
+pervade the whole bush?
+
+I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the
+evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history.
+Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of
+his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent
+than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not
+lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his
+mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life
+with barren toil and battle. He attains a certain degree of physical
+comfort, and develops a more or less workable theory of life, in such
+favourable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or of Egypt, and
+then, for thousands and thousands of years, struggles, with varying
+fortunes, attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to
+maintain himself at this point against the greed and the ambition of
+his fellow-men. He makes a point of killing and otherwise persecuting
+all those who first try to get him to move on; and when he has moved
+on a step, foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his victims.
+He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a step yet
+farther. And the best men of the best epochs are simply those who make
+the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.
+
+That one should rejoice in the good man, forgive the bad man, and pity
+and help all men to the best of one's ability, is surely indisputable.
+It is the glory of Judaism and of Christianity to have proclaimed this
+truth, through all their aberrations. But the worship of a God who
+needs forgiveness and help, and deserves pity every hour of his
+existence, is no better than that of any other voluntarily selected
+fetish. The Emperor Julian's project was hopeful in comparison with
+the prospects of the Comtist Anthropolatry.
+
+When the historian of religion in the twentieth century is writing
+about the nineteenth, I foresee he will say something of this kind:
+
+The most curious and instructive events in the religious history of
+the preceding century are the rise and progress of two new sects
+called Mormons and Positivists. To the student who has carefully
+considered these remarkable phenomena nothing in the records of
+religious self-delusion can appear improbable.
+
+The Mormons arose in the midst of the great Republic, which, though
+comparatively insignificant, at that time, in territory as in the
+number of its citizens, was (as we know from the fragments of the
+speeches of its orators which have come down to us) no less remarkable
+for the native intelligence of its population than for the wide extent
+of their information, owing to the activity of their publishers in
+diffusing all that they could invent, beg, borrow, or steal. Nor were
+they less noted for their perfect freedom from all restraints in
+thought, or speech, or deed; except, to be sure, the beneficent and
+wise influence of the majority, exerted, in case of need, through an
+institution known as "tarring and feathering," the exact nature of
+which is now disputed.
+
+There is a complete consensus of testimony that the founder of
+Mormonism, one Joseph Smith, was a low-minded, ignorant scamp, and
+that he stole the "Scriptures" which he propounded; not being clever
+enough to forge even such contemptible stuff as they contain.
+Nevertheless he must have been a man of some force of character, for a
+considerable number of disciples soon gathered about him. In spite of
+repeated outbursts of popular hatred and violence--during one of which
+persecutions Smith was brutally murdered--the Mormon body steadily
+increased, and became a flourishing community. But the Mormon
+practices being objectionable to the majority, they were, more than
+once, without any pretence of law, but by force of riot, arson, and
+murder, driven away from the land they had occupied. Harried by these
+persecutions, the Mormon body eventually committed itself to the
+tender mercies of a desert as barren as that of Sinai; and after
+terrible sufferings and privations, reached the Oasis of Utah. Here it
+grew and flourished, sending out missionaries to, and receiving
+converts from, all parts of Europe, sometimes to the number of 10,000
+in a year; until, in 1880, the rich and flourishing community numbered
+110,000 souls in Utah alone, while there were probably 30,000 or
+40,000 scattered abroad elsewhere. In the whole history of religions
+there is no more remarkable example of the power of faith; and, in
+this case, the founder of that faith was indubitably a most despicable
+creature. It is interesting to observe that the course taken by the
+great Republic and its citizens runs exactly parallel with that taken
+by the Roman Empire and its citizens towards the early Christians,
+except that the Romans had a certain legal excuse for their acts of
+violence, inasmuch as the Christian "sodalitia" were not licensed, and
+consequently were, _ipso facto_, illegal assemblages. Until, in the
+latter part of the nineteenth century, the United States legislature
+decreed the illegality of polygamy, the Mormons were wholly within the
+law.
+
+Nothing can present a greater contrast to all this than the history of
+the Postivists. This sect arose much about the same time as that of
+the Mormons, in the upper and most instructed stratum of the
+quick-witted, sceptical population of Paris. The founder, Auguste
+Comte, was a teacher of mathematics, but of no eminence in that
+department of knowledge, and with nothing but an amateur's
+acquaintance with physical, chemical, and biological science. His
+works are repulsive, on account of the dull diffuseness of their
+style, and a certain air, as of a superior person, which characterises
+them; but nevertheless they contain good things here and there. It
+would take too much space to reproduce in detail a system which
+proposes to regulate all human life by the promulgation of a Gentile
+Leviticus. Suffice it to say, that M. Comte may be described as a
+syncretic, who, like the Gnostics of early Church history, attempted
+to combine the substance of imperfectly comprehended contemporary
+science with the form of Roman Christianity. It may be that this is
+the reason why his disciples were so very angry with some obscure
+people called Agnostics, whose views, if we may judge by the account
+left in the works of a great Positivist controversial writer, were
+very absurd.
+
+To put the matter briefly, M. Comte, finding Christianity and Science
+at daggers drawn, seems to have said to Science, "You find
+Christianity rotten at the core, do you? Well, I will scoop out the
+inside of it." And to Romanism: "You find Science mere dry light--cold
+and bare. Well, I will put your shell over it, and so, as schoolboys
+make a spectre out of a turnip and a tallow candle, behold the new
+religion of Humanity complete!"
+
+Unfortunately neither the Romanists, nor the people who were something
+more than amateurs in science, could be got to worship M. Comte's new
+idol properly. In the native country of Positivism, one distinguished
+man of letters and one of science, for a time, helped to make up a
+roomful of the faithful, but their love soon grew cold. In England, on
+the other hand, there appears to be little doubt that, in the ninth
+decade of the century, the multitude of disciples reached the grand
+total of several score. They had the advantage of the advocacy of one
+or two most eloquent and learned apostles, and, at any rate, the
+sympathy of several persons of light and leading; and, if they were
+not seen, they were heard, all over the world. On the other hand, as a
+sect, they laboured under the prodigious disadvantage of being
+refined, estimable people, living in the midst of the worn-out
+civilisation of the old world; where any one who had tried to
+persecute them, as the Mormons were persecuted, would have been
+instantly hanged. But the majority never dreamed of persecuting them;
+on the contrary, they were rather given to scold and otherwise try the
+patience of the majority.
+
+The history of these sects in the closing years of the century is
+highly instructive. Mormonism ...
+
+But I find I have suddenly slipped off Mr. Harrison's tripod, which I
+had borrowed for the occasion. The fact is, I am not equal to the
+prophetical business, and ought not to have undertaken it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[It did not occur to me, while writing the latter part of this essay,
+that it could be needful to disclaim the intention of putting the
+religious system of Comte on a level with Mormonism. And I was unaware
+of the fact that Mr. Harrison rejects the greater part of the
+Positivist Religion, as taught by Comte. I have, therefore, erased one
+or two passages, which implied his adherence to the "Religion of
+Humanity" as developed by Comte, 1893.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [51] See the _Official Report of the Church Congress held
+          at Manchester_, October 1888, pp. 253, 254.
+
+     [52] In this place and in the eleventh essay, there are
+          references to the late Archbishop of York which are of
+          no importance to my main argument, and which I have
+          expunged because I desire to obliterate the traces of a
+          temporary misunderstanding with a man of rare ability,
+          candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking
+          and no less respect. I rejoice to think now of the
+          (then) Bishop's cordial hail the first time we met
+          after our little skirmish, "Well, is it to be peace or
+          war?" I replied, "A little of both." But there was only
+          peace when we parted, and ever after.
+
+     [53] Dr. Wace tells us, "It may be asked how far we can rely
+          on the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on
+          these subjects." And he seems to think the question
+          appropriately answered by the assertion that it "ought
+          to be regarded as settled by M. Renan's practical
+          surrender of the adverse case." I thought I knew M.
+          Renan's works pretty well, but I have contrived to miss
+          this "practical" (I wish Dr. Wace had defined the scope
+          of that useful adjective) surrender. However, as Dr.
+          Wace can find no difficulty in pointing out the passage
+          of M. Renan's writings, by which he feels justified in
+          making his statement, I shall wait for further
+          enlightenment, contenting myself, for the present, with
+          remarking that if M. Renan were to retract and do
+          penance in Notre-Dame to-morrow for any contributions
+          to Biblical criticism that may be specially his
+          property, the main results of that criticism, as they
+          are set forth in the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and
+          Volkmar, for example, would not be sensibly affected.
+
+     [54] See De Gobineau, _Les Religions et les Philosophies
+          dans l'Asie Centrale_; and the recently published work
+          of Mr. E.G. Browne, _The Episode of the Bab_.
+
+     [55] Here, as always, the revised version is cited.
+
+     [56] Does any one really mean to say that there is any
+          internal or external criterion by which the reader of a
+          biblical statement, in which scientific matter is
+          contained, is enabled to judge whether it is to betaken
+          _au s�rieux_ or not? Is the account of the Deluge,
+          accepted as true in the New Testament, less precise and
+          specific than that of the call of Abraham, also
+          accepted as true therein? By what mark does the story
+          of the feeding with manna in the wilderness, which
+          involves some very curious scientific problems, show
+          that it is meant merely for edification, while the
+          story of the inscription of the Law on stone by the
+          hand of Jahveh is literally true? If the story of the
+          Fall is not the true record of an historical
+          occurrence, what becomes of Pauline theology? Yet the
+          story of the Fall as directly conflicts with
+          probability, and is as devoid of trustworthy evidence,
+          as that of the creation or that of the Deluge, with
+          which it forms an harmoniously legendary series.
+
+     [57] See, for an admirable discussion of the whole subject,
+          Dr. Abbott's article on the Gospels in the
+          _Encyclop�dia Britannica_; and the remarkable monograph
+          by Professor Volkmar, _Jesus Nazarenus und die erste
+          christliche Zeit_ (1882). Whether we agree with the
+          conclusions of these writers or not, the method of
+          critical investigation which, they adopt is
+          unimpeachable.
+
+     [58] Notwithstanding the hard words shot at me from behind
+          the hedge of anonymity by a writer in a recent number
+          of the _Quarterly Review_, I repeat, without the
+          slightest fear of refutation, that the four Gospels, as
+          they have come to us, are the work of unknown writers.
+
+     [59] Their arguments, in the long run, are always reducible
+          to one form. Otherwise trustworthy witnesses affirm
+          that such and such events took place. These events are
+          inexplicable, except the agency of "spirits" is
+          admitted. Therefore "spirits" were the cause of the
+          phenomena.
+
+          And the heads of the reply are always the same.
+          Remember Goethe's aphorism: "Alles factische ist schon
+          Theorie." Trustworthy witnesses are constantly
+          deceived, or deceive themselves, in their
+          interpretation of sensible phenomena. No one can prove
+          that the sensible phenomena, in these cases, could be
+          caused only by the agency of spirits: and there is
+          abundant ground for believing that they may be produced
+          in other ways. Therefore, the utmost that can be
+          reasonably asked for, on the evidence as it stands, is
+          suspension of judgment. And, on the necessity for even
+          that suspension, reasonable men may differ, according
+          to their views of probability.
+
+     [60] Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the
+          matter, for, many years afterwards, when Dean Mansel's
+          Bampton Lectures were published, it seemed to me I
+          already knew all that this eminently agnostic thinker
+          had to tell me.
+
+     [61] _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_. Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256.
+
+     [62] _Report of the Church Congress_, Manchester, 1888, p. 252.
+
+     [63] _Fortnightly Review_, Jan. 1889.
+
+
+
+
+VIII: AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER
+
+[1889]
+
+
+Those who passed from Dr. Wace's article in the last number of the
+"Nineteenth Century" to the anticipatory confutation of it which
+followed in "The New Reformation," must have enjoyed the pleasure of a
+dramatic surprise--just as when the fifth act of a new play proves
+unexpectedly bright and interesting. Mrs. Ward will, I hope, pardon
+the comparison, if I say that her effective clearing away of
+antiquated incumbrances from the lists of the controversy, reminds me
+of nothing so much as of the action of some neat-handed, but
+strong-wristed, Phyllis, who, gracefully wielding her long-handled
+"Turk's head," sweeps away the accumulated results of the toil of
+generations of spiders. I am the more indebted to this luminous sketch
+of the results of critical investigation, as it is carried out among
+these theologians who are men of science and not mere counsel for
+creeds, since it has relieved me from the necessity of dealing with
+the greater part of Dr. Wace's polemic, and enables me to devote more
+space to the really important issues which have been raised.[64]
+
+Perhaps, however, it may be well for me to observe that approbation of
+the manner in which a great biblical scholar, for instance, Reuss,
+does his work does not commit me to the adoption of all, or indeed any
+of his views; and, further, that the disagreements of a series of
+investigators do not in any way interfere with the fact that each of
+them has made important contributions to the body of truth ultimately
+established. If I cite Buffon, Linn�us, Lamarck, and Cuvier, as having
+each and all taken a leading share in building up modern biology, the
+statement that every one of these great naturalists disagreed with,
+and even more or less contradicted, all the rest is quite true; but
+the supposition that the latter assertion is in any way inconsistent
+with the former, would betray a strange ignorance of the manner in
+which all true science advances.
+
+Dr. Wace takes a great deal of trouble to make it appear that I have
+desired to evade the real questions raised by his attack upon me at
+the Church Congress. I assure the reverend Principal that in this, as
+in some other respects, he has entertained a very erroneous conception
+of my intentions. Things would assume more accurate proportions in Dr.
+Wace's mind, if he would kindly remember that it is just thirty years
+since ecclesiastical thunderbolts began to fly about my ears. I have
+had the "Lion and the Bear" to deal with, and it is long since I got
+quite used to the threatenings of episcopal Goliaths, whose croziers
+were like unto a weaver's beam. So that I almost think I might not
+have noticed Dr. Wace's attack, personal as it was; and although, as
+he is good enough to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the
+modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not come
+under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I further
+venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expenditure of
+twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would have enabled
+Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conventions as to direct my
+attention to the fact that he had attacked me before a meeting at
+which I was not present? I really am not responsible for the five
+months' neglect of which Dr. Wace complains. Singularly enough, the
+Englishry who swarmed about the Engadine, during the three months that
+I was being brought back to life by the glorious air and perfect
+comfort of the Maloja, did not, in my hearing, say anything about the
+important events which had taken place at the Church Congress; and I
+think I can venture to affirm that there was not a single copy of Dr.
+Wace's pamphlet in any of the hotel libraries which I rummaged, in
+search of something more edifying than dull English or questionable
+French novels.
+
+And now, having, as I hope, set myself right with the public as
+regards the sins of commission and omission with which I have been
+charged, I feel free to deal with matters to which time and type may
+be more profitably devoted.
+
+I believe that there is not a solitary argument I have used, or that I
+am about to use, which is original, or has anything to do with the
+fact that I have been chiefly occupied with natural science. They are
+all, facts and reasoning alike, either identical with, or
+consequential upon, propositions which are to be found in the works of
+scholars and theologians of the highest repute in the only two
+countries, Holland and Germany,[65] in which, at the present time,
+professors of theology are to be found, whose tenure of their posts
+does not depend upon the results to which their inquiries lead
+them.[66] It is true that, to the best of my ability, I have satisfied
+myself of the soundness of the foundations on which my arguments are
+built, and I desire to be held fully responsible for everything I say.
+But, nevertheless, my position is really no more than that of an
+expositor; and my justification for undertaking it is simply that
+conviction of the supremacy of private judgment (indeed, of the
+impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the
+Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by the
+vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that backsliding
+towards the "beggarly rudiments" of an effete and idolatrous
+sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with the saddest
+spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Englishmen in this
+generation. A high court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with a host
+of great lawyers in battle array, is and, for Heaven knows how long,
+will be, occupied with these very questions of "washing of cups and
+pots and brazen vessels," which the Master, whose professed
+representatives are rending the Church over these squabbles, had in
+his mind when, as we are told, he uttered the scathing rebuke:--
+
+    Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
+        This people honoureth me with their lips,
+        But their heart is far from me.
+        But in vain do they worship me,
+        Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.
+                                          (Mark vii. 6-7.)
+
+Men who can be absorbed in bickerings over miserable disputes of this
+kind can have but little sympathy with the old evangelical doctrine of
+the "open Bible," or anything but a grave misgiving of the results of
+diligent reading of the Bible, without the help of ecclesiastical
+spectacles, by the mass of the people. Greatly to the surprise of many
+of my friends, I have always advocated the reading of the Bible, and
+the diffusion of the study of that most remarkable collection of books
+among the people. Its teachings are so infinitely superior to those of
+the sects, who are just as busy now as the Pharisees were eighteen
+hundred years ago, in smothering them under "the precepts of men"; it
+is so certain, to my mind, that the Bible contains within itself the
+refutation of nine-tenths of the mixture of sophistical metaphysics
+and old-world superstition which has been piled round it by the
+so-called Christians of later times; it is so clear that the only
+immediate and ready antidote to the poison which has been mixed with
+Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of mankind, lies in
+copious draughts from the undefiled spring, that I exercise the right
+and duty of free judgment on the part of every man, mainly for the
+purpose of inducing other laymen to follow my example. If the New
+Testament is translated into Zulu by Protestant missionaries, it must
+be assumed that a Zulu convert is competent to draw from its contents
+all the truths which it is necessary for him to believe. I trust that
+I may, without immodesty, claim to be put on the same footing as a
+Zulu.
+
+The most constant reproach which is launched against persons of my way
+of thinking is that it is all very well for us to talk about the
+deductions of scientific thought, but what are the poor and the
+uneducated to do? Has it ever occurred to those who talk in this
+fashion, that their creeds and the articles of their several
+confessions, their determination of the exact nature and extent of the
+teachings of Jesus, their expositions of the real meaning of that
+which is written in the Epistles (to leave aside all questions
+concerning the Old Testament), are nothing more than deductions which,
+at any rate, profess to be the result of strictly scientific thinking,
+and which are not worth attending to unless they really possess that
+character? If it is not historically true that such and such things
+happened in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of
+Christianity? And what is historical truth but that of which the
+evidence bears strict scientific investigation? I do not call to mind
+any problem of natural science which has come under my notice which is
+more difficult, or more curiously interesting as a mere problem, than
+that of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels and that of the historical
+value of the narratives which they contain. The Christianity of the
+Churches stands or falls by the results of the purely scientific
+investigation of these questions. They were first taken up, in a
+purely scientific spirit, about a century ago; they have been studied
+over and over again by men of vast knowledge and critical acumen; but
+he would be a rash man who should assert that any solution of these
+problems, as yet formulated, is exhaustive. The most that can be said
+is that certain prevalent solutions are certainly false, while others
+are more or less probably true.
+
+If I am doing my best to rouse my countrymen out of their dogmatic
+slumbers, it is not that they may be amused by seeing who gets the
+best of it in a contest between a "scientist" and a theologian. The
+serious question is whether theological men of science, or theological
+special pleaders, are to have the confidence of the general public; it
+is the question whether a country in which it is possible for a body
+of excellent clerical and lay gentlemen to discuss, in public meeting
+assembled, how much it is desirable to let the congregations of the
+faithful know of the results of biblical criticism, is likely to wake
+up with anything short of the grasp of a rough lay hand upon its
+shoulder; it is the question whether the New Testament books, being,
+as I believe they were, written and compiled by people who, according
+to their lights, were perfectly sincere, will not, when properly
+studied as ordinary historical documents, afford us the means of
+self-criticism. And it must be remembered that the New Testament books
+are not responsible for the doctrine invented by the Churches that
+they are anything but ordinary historical documents. The author of the
+third gospel tells us, as straightforwardly as a man can, that he has
+no claim to any other character than that of an ordinary compiler and
+editor, who had before him the works of many and variously qualified
+predecessors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In my former papers, according to Dr. Wace, I have evaded giving an
+answer to his main proposition, which he states as follows--
+
+     Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one
+     practically doubts that our Lord lived, and that He died on
+     the cross, in the most intense sense of filial relation to
+     His Father in Heaven, and that He bore testimony to that
+     Father's providence, love, and grace towards mankind. The
+     Lord's Prayer affords a sufficient evidence on these points.
+     If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole unseen
+     world, of which the Agnostic refuses to know anything,
+     stands unveiled before us.... If Jesus Christ preached that
+     Sermon, made those promises, and taught that prayer, then
+     any one who says that we know nothing of God, or of a future
+     life, or of an unseen world, says that he does not believe
+     Jesus Christ (pp. 354-355).
+
+Again--
+
+     The main question at issue, in a word, is one which
+     Professor Huxley has chosen to leave entirely on one
+     side--whether, namely, allowing for the utmost uncertainty
+     on other points of the criticism to which he appeals, there
+     is any reasonable doubt that the Lord's Prayer and the
+     Sermon on the Mount afford a true account of our Lord's
+     essential belief and cardinal teaching (p. 355.)
+
+I certainly was not aware that I had evaded the questions here stated;
+indeed I should say that I have indicated my reply to them pretty
+clearly; but, as Dr. Wace wants a plainer answer, he shall certainly
+be gratified. If, as Dr. Wace declares it is, his "whole case is
+involved in" the argument as stated in the latter of these two
+extracts, so much the worse for his whole case. For I am of opinion
+that there is the gravest reason for doubting whether the "Sermon on
+the Mount" was ever preached, and whether the so-called "Lord's
+Prayer" was ever prayed, by Jesus of Nazareth. My reasons for this
+opinion are, among others, these:--There is now no doubt that the
+three Synoptic Gospels, so far from being the work of three
+independent writers, are closely interdependent,[67] and that in one
+of two ways. Either all three contain, as their foundation, versions,
+to a large extent verbally identical, of one and the same tradition;
+or two of them are thus closely dependent on the third; and the
+opinion of the majority of the best critics has of late years more and
+more converged towards the conviction that our canonical second gospel
+(the so-called "Mark's" Gospel) is that which most closely represents
+the primitive groundwork of the three.[68] That I take to be one of
+the most valuable results of New Testament criticism, of immeasurably
+greater importance than the discussion about dates and authorship.
+
+But if, as I believe to be the case, beyond any rational doubt or
+dispute, the second gospel is the nearest extant representative of the
+oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that it
+contains neither the "Sermon on the Mount" nor the "Lord's Prayer,"
+those typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the "essential
+belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus? Not only does "Mark's" gospel
+fail to contain the "Sermon on the Mount," or anything but a very few
+of the sayings contained in that collection; but, at the point of the
+history of Jesus where the "Sermon" occurs in "Matthew," there is in
+"Mark" an apparently unbroken narrative from the calling of James and
+John to the healing of Simon's wife's mother. Thus the oldest
+tradition not only ignores the "Sermon on the Mount," but, by
+implication, raises a probability against its being delivered when and
+where the later "Matthew" inserts it in his compilation.
+
+And still more weighty is the fact that the third gospel, the author
+of which tells us that he wrote after "many" others had "taken in
+hand" the same enterprise; who should therefore have known the first
+gospel (if it existed), and was bound to pay to it the deference due
+to the work of an apostolic eye-witness (if he had any reason for
+thinking it was so)--this writer, who exhibits far more literary
+competence than the other two, ignores any "Sermon on the Mount," such
+as that reported by "Matthew," just as much as the oldest authority
+does. Yet "Luke" has a great many passages identical, or parallel,
+with those in "Matthew's" "Sermon on the Mount," which are, for the
+most part, scattered about in a totally different connection.
+
+Interposed, however, between the nomination of the Apostles and a
+visit to Capernaum; occupying, therefore, a place which answers to
+that of the "Sermon on the Mount," in the first gospel, there is in
+the third gospel a discourse which is as closely similar to the
+"Sermon on the Mount," in some particulars, as it is widely unlike it
+in others.
+
+This discourse is said to have been delivered in a "plain" or "level
+place" (Luke vi. 17), and by way of distinction we may call it the
+"Sermon on the Plain."
+
+I see no reason to doubt that the two Evangelists are dealing, to a
+considerable extent, with the same traditional material; and a
+comparison of the two "Sermons" suggests very strongly that "Luke's"
+version is the earlier. The correspondences between the two forbid the
+notion that they are independent. They both begin with a series of
+blessings, some of which are almost verbally identical. In the middle
+of each (Luke vi. 27-38, Matt. v. 43-48) there is a striking
+exposition of the ethical spirit of the command given in Leviticus
+xix. 18. And each ends with a passage containing the declaration that
+a tree is to be known by its fruit, and the parable of the house built
+on the sand. But while there are only 29 verses in the "Sermon on the
+Plain" there are 107 in the "Sermon on the Mount;" the excess in
+length of the latter being chiefly due to the long interpolations,
+one of 30 verses before and one of 34 verses after, the middlemost
+parallelism with Luke. Under these circumstances it is quite
+impossible to admit that there is more probability that "Matthew's"
+version of the Sermon is historically accurate, than there is that
+Luke's version is so; and they cannot both be accurate.
+
+"Luke" either knew the collection of loosely-connected and aphoristic
+utterances which appear under the name of the "Sermon on the Mount" in
+"Matthew"; or he did not. If he did not, he must have been ignorant of
+the existence of such a document as our canonical "Matthew," a fact
+which does not make for the genuineness, or the authority, of that
+book. If he did, he has shown that he does not care for its authority
+on a matter of fact of no small importance; and that does not permit
+us to conceive that he believed the first gospel to be the work of an
+authority to whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an apostolic
+eye-witness.
+
+The tradition of the Church about the second gospel, which I believe
+to be quite worthless, but which is all the evidence there is for
+"Mark's" authorship, would have us believe that "Mark" was little more
+than the mouthpiece of the apostle Peter. Consequently, we are to
+suppose that Peter either did not know, or did not care very much for,
+that account of the "essential belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus
+which is contained in the Sermon on the Mount; and, certainly, he
+could not have shared Dr. Wace's view of its importance.[69]
+
+I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of the
+gospels, to say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew these
+things. But how can any one who does know them have the conscience to
+ask whether there is "any reasonable doubt" that the Sermon on the
+Mount was preached by Jesus of Nazareth? If conjecture is permissible,
+where nothing else is possible, the most probable conjecture seems to
+be that "Matthew," having a _cento_ of sayings attributed--rightly or
+wrongly it is impossible to say--to Jesus among his materials, thought
+they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse, and put
+them in at the place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the
+highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches which never
+were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of statesmen and
+warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented by "Matthew" would
+have been grievously astonished to find that any one objected to his
+following the example of the best models accessible to him.
+
+So with the "Lord's Prayer." Absent in our representative of the
+oldest tradition, it appears in both "Matthew" and "Luke." There is
+reason to believe that every pious Jew, at the commencement of our
+era, prayed three times a day, according to a formula which is
+embodied in the present "Schmone-Esre"[70] of the Jewish prayer-book.
+Jesus, who was assuredly, in all respects, a pious Jew, whatever else
+he may have been, doubtless did the same. Whether he modified the
+current formula, or whether the so-called "Lord's Prayer" is the
+prayer substituted for the "Schmone-Esre" in the congregations of the
+Gentiles, is a question which can hardly be answered.
+
+In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace's article (p. 356) he adds to the
+list of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, "The Story
+of the Passion." I am not quite sure what he means by this. I am not
+aware that any one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics)
+has propounded doubts as to the reality of the crucifixion; and
+certainly I have no inclination to argue about the precise accuracy of
+every detail of that pathetic story of suffering and wrong. But, if
+Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, that that which, according to
+the orthodox view, happened after the crucifixion, and which is, in a
+dogmatic sense, the most important part of the story, is founded on
+solid historical proofs, I must beg leave to express a diametrically
+opposite conviction.
+
+What do we find when the accounts of the events in question, contained
+in the three Synoptic gospels, are compared together? In the oldest,
+there is a simple, straightforward statement which, for anything that
+I have to urge to the contrary, may be exactly true. In the other two,
+there is, round this possible and probable nucleus, a mass of
+accretions of the most questionable character.
+
+The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon its
+lingering character. If there were a support for the weight of the
+body, as not unfrequently was the practice, the pain during the first
+hours of the infliction was not, necessarily, extreme; nor need any
+serious physical symptoms, at once, arise from the wounds made by the
+nails in the hands and feet, supposing they were nailed, which was not
+invariably the case. When exhaustion set in, and hunger, thirst, and
+nervous irritation had done their work, the agony of the sufferer must
+have been terrible; and the more terrible that, in the absence of any
+effectual disturbance of the machinery of physical life, it might be
+prolonged for many hours, or even days. Temperate, strong men, such as
+were the ordinary Galilean peasants, might live for several days on
+the cross. It is necessary to bear these facts in mind when we read
+the account contained in the fifteenth chapter of the second gospel.
+
+Jesus was crucified at the third hour (xv. 25), and the narrative
+seems to imply that he died immediately after the ninth hour (_v_.
+34). In this case, he would have been crucified only six hours; and
+the time spent on the cross cannot have been much longer, because
+Joseph of Arimath�a must have gone to Pilate, made his preparations,
+and deposited the body in the rock-cut tomb before sunset, which, at
+that time of the year, was about the twelfth hour. That any one should
+die after only six hours' crucifixion could not have been at all in
+accordance with Pilate's large experience of the effects of that
+method of punishment. It, therefore, quite agrees with what might be
+expected, that Pilate "marvelled if he were already dead" and required
+to be satisfied on this point by the testimony of the Roman officer
+who was in command of the execution party. Those who have paid
+attention to the extraordinary difficult question, What are the
+indisputable signs of death?--will be able to estimate the value of
+the opinion of a rough soldier on such a subject; even if his report
+to the Procurator were in no wise affected by the fact that the friend
+of Jesus, who anxiously awaited his answer, was a man of influence and
+of wealth.
+
+The inanimate body, wrapped in linen, was deposited in a
+spacious,[71] cool rock chamber, the entrance of which was closed, not
+by a well-fitting door, but by a stone rolled against the opening,
+which would of course allow free passage of air. A little more than
+thirty-six hours afterwards (Friday 6 P.M., to Sunday 6 A.M., or a
+little after) three women visit the tomb and find it empty. And they
+are told by a young man "arrayed in a white robe" that Jesus is gone
+to his native country of Galilee, and that the disciples and Peter
+will find him there.
+
+Thus it stands, plainly recorded, in the oldest tradition that, for
+any evidence to the contrary, the sepulchre may have been emptied at
+any time during the Friday or Saturday nights. If it is said that no
+Jew would have violated the Sabbath by taking the former course, it is
+to be recollected that Joseph of Arimath�a might well be familiar with
+that wise and liberal interpretation of the fourth commandment, which
+permitted works of mercy to men--nay, even the drawing of an ox or an
+ass out of a pit--on the Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was
+free to the most scrupulous of observers of the Law.
+
+These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant
+narrative of them. I do not see why any one should have a word to say
+against the inherent probability of that narrative; and, for my part,
+I am quite ready to accept it as an historical fact, that so much and
+no more is positively known of the end of Jesus of Nazareth. On what
+grounds can a reasonable man be asked to believe any more? So far as
+the narrative in the first gospel, on the one hand, and those in the
+third gospel and the Acts, on the other, go beyond what is stated in
+the second gospel, they are hopelessly discrepant with one another.
+And this is the more significant because the pregnant phrase "some
+doubted," in the first gospel, is ignored in the third.
+
+But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us directly
+in the Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a very
+singular witness he is. According to his own showing, Paul, in the
+vigour of his manhood, with every means of becoming acquainted, at
+first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses, not merely refused to
+credit them, but "persecuted the church of God and made havoc of it."
+The reasoning of Stephen fell dead upon the acute intellect of this
+zealot for the traditions of his fathers: his eyes were blind to the
+ecstatic illumination of the martyr's countenance "as it had been the
+face of an angel;" and when, at the words "Behold, I see the heavens
+opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God," the
+murderous mob rushed upon and stoned the rapt disciple of Jesus, Paul
+ostentatiously made himself their official accomplice.
+
+Yet this strange man, because he has a vision, one day, at once, and
+with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opinion. And
+he is most careful to tell us that he abstained from any
+re-examination of the facts.
+
+     Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither
+     went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before
+     me; but I went away into Arabia. (Galatians i. 16, 17.)
+
+I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's procedure. If it satisfied
+him, that was his affair; and, if it satisfies anyone else, I am not
+called upon to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. But I
+certainly have the right to say that it would not satisfy me, in like
+case; that I should be very much ashamed to pretend that it could, or
+ought to, satisfy me; and that I can entertain but a very low estimate
+of the value of the evidence of people who are to be satisfied in this
+fashion, when questions of objective fact, in which their faith is
+interested, are concerned. So that when I am called upon to believe a
+great deal more than the oldest gospel tells me about the final events
+of the history of Jesus on the authority of Paul (1 Corinthians xv.
+5-8) I must pause. Did he think it, at any subsequent time, worth
+while "to confer with flesh and blood," or, in modern phrase, to
+re-examine the facts for himself? or was he ready to accept anything
+that fitted in with his preconceived ideas? Does he mean, when he
+speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if
+they were of the same kind, that they were all visions, like the
+manifestation to himself? And, finally, how is this account to be
+reconciled with those in the first and third gospels--which, as we
+have seen, disagree with one another?
+
+Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid that,
+so far as I am concerned, Paul's testimony cannot be seriously
+regarded, except as it may afford evidence of the state of traditional
+opinion at the time at which he wrote, say between 55 and 60 A.D.;
+that is, more than twenty years after the event; a period much more
+than sufficient for the development of any amount of mythology about
+matters of which nothing was really known. A few years later, among
+the contemporaries and neighbours of the Jews, and, if the most
+probable interpretation of the Apocalypse can he trusted, among the
+followers of Jesus also, it was fully believed, in spite of all the
+evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor Nero was not really dead,
+but that he was hidden away somewhere in the East, and would speedily
+come again at the head of a great army, to be revenged upon his
+enemies.[72]
+
+Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the opinion that Dr.
+Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
+and the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this
+discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what
+Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I will say
+whether I believe him, or in him,[73] or not. As Dr. Wace admits that
+I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief about the
+bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done something to help
+mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total want of conception of the
+nature of the obstacles which impede the conversion of his "infidels."
+
+The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of
+arriving at a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon on
+the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by the
+Synoptic gospels (and _a fortiori_ from the fourth gospel), are
+insuperable. Every one of these records is coloured by the
+prepossessions of those among whom the primitive traditions arose, and
+of those by whom they were collected and edited: and the difficulty of
+making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by our ignorance
+of the exact dates at which the documents were first put together; of
+the extent to which they have been subsequently worked over and
+interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want of sense, and the
+dogmatic tendencies of their compilers and editors. Let us see if
+there is any other road which will take us into something better than
+negation.
+
+There is a widespread notion that the "primitive Church," while under
+the guidance of the Apostles and their immediate successors, was a
+sort of dogmatic dovecot, pervaded by the most loving unity and
+doctrinal harmony. Protestants, especially, are fond of attributing to
+themselves the merit of being nearer "the Church of the Apostles" than
+their neighbours; and they are the less to be excused for their
+strange delusion because they are great readers of the documents which
+prove the exact contrary. The fact is that, in the course of the first
+three centuries of its existence, the Church rapidly underwent a
+process of evolution of the most remarkable character, the final stage
+of which is far more different from the first than Anglicanism is from
+Quakerism. The key to the comprehension of the problem of the origin
+of that which is now called "Christianity," and its relation to Jesus
+of Nazareth, lies here. Nor can we arrive at any sound conclusion as
+to what it is probable that Jesus actually said and did, without being
+clear on this head. By far the most important and subsequently
+influential steps in the evolution of Christianity took place in the
+course of the century, more or less, which followed upon the
+crucifixion. It is almost the darkest period of Church history, but,
+most fortunately, the beginning and the end of the period are brightly
+illuminated by the contemporary evidence of two writers of whose
+historical existence there is no doubt,[74] and against the
+genuineness of whose most important works there is no widely-admitted
+objection. These are Justin, the philosopher and martyr, and Paul, the
+Apostle to the Gentiles. I shall call upon these witnesses only to
+testify to the condition of opinion among those who called themselves
+disciples of Jesus in their time.
+
+Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which was written
+somewhere about the middle of the second century, enumerates certain
+categories of persons who, in his opinion, will, or will not, be
+saved,[75] These are:--
+
+1. Orthodox Jews who refuse to believe that those who do observe it to
+be heretics. _Saved_.
+
+2. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ; but who
+insist on the observance of the Law by Gentile converts. _Not Saved_.
+
+3. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ, and hold
+that Gentile converts need not observe the Law. _Saved_ (in Justin's
+opinion; but some of his fellow-Christians think the contrary).
+
+4. Gentile converts to the belief in Jesus as the Christ, who observe
+the Law. _Saved_ (possibly).
+
+5. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who do not observe the
+Law themselves (except so far as the refusal of idol sacrifices), but
+do not consider those who do observe it heretics. _Saved_ (this is
+Justin's own view).
+
+6. Gentile believers who do not observe the Law, except in refusing
+idol sacrifices, and hold those who do observe it to be heretics.
+_Saved_.
+
+7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves
+Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. _Not Saved_.
+
+8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. _Not Saved_.
+
+Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural birth
+of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to
+be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth
+of Jesus and his pre-existence as the "Logos" or "Word." He conceives
+the Logos to be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable God,
+with respect to whom Justin, like Philo, is a complete agnostic. The
+Holy Spirit is not regarded by Justin as a separate personality, and
+is often mixed up with the "Logos." The doctrine of the natural
+immortality of the soul is, for Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a
+believer in the resurrection of the body, as in the speedy Second
+Coming and the establishment of the millennium.
+
+The pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century--a
+much-travelled native of Samaria--was certainly well acquainted with
+Rome, probably with Alexandria; and it is likely that he knew the
+state of opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Christian
+world as well as any man of his time. If the various categories above
+enumerated are arranged in a series thus:--
+
+                     _Justin's Christianity_
+                        ________/\__________
+                       /                    \
+_Orthodox_    _Jud�o-Christianity_     _Idolothytic_
+_Judaism_      ______/\______          _Christianity_   _Paganism_
+              /              \
+      I.     II.  III.  IV.    V.       VI.  VII.          VIII.
+
+it is obvious that they form a gradational series from orthodox
+Judaism, on the extreme left, to Paganism, whether philosophic or
+popular, on the extreme right; and it will further be observed that,
+while Justin's conception of Christianity is very broad, he rigorously
+excludes two classes of persons who, in his time, called themselves
+Christians; namely, those who insist on circumcision and other
+observances of the Law on the part of Gentile converts; that is to
+say, the strict Jud�o-Christians (II.); and, on the other hand, those
+who assert the lawfulness of eating meat offered to idols--whether
+they are Gnostic or not (VII.). These last I have called "idolothytic"
+Christians, because I cannot devise a better name, not because it is
+strictly defensible etymologically.
+
+At the present moment, I do not suppose there is an English missionary
+in any heathen land who would trouble himself whether the materials of
+his dinner had been previously offered to idols or not. On the other
+hand, I suppose there is no Protestant sect within the pale of
+orthodoxy, to say nothing of the Roman and Greek Churches, which would
+hesitate to declare the practice of circumcision and the observance of
+the Jewish Sabbath and dietary rules, shockingly heretical.
+
+Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted far to the right of
+Justin's position, but it is of much narrower compass.
+
+                             _Justin_
+                     ___________/\________________
+                    /                             \
+           _Jud�o-Christianity_   _Modern Christianity_  _Paganism_
+_Judaism_     _____/\_____                   _______/\_______
+             /            \                 /                \
+    I.     II.    III.     IV.        V.   VI.    VII.     VIII.
+
+For, though it includes VII., and even, in saint and relic worship,
+cuts a "monstrous cantle" out of paganism, it excludes, not only all
+Jud�o-Christians, but all who doubt that such are heretics. Ever since
+the thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have cheerfully burned,
+and in Spain did abundantly burn, all persons who came under the
+categories II., III., IV., V. And the wolf would play the same havoc
+now, if it could only get its blood-stained jaws free from the muzzle
+imposed by the secular arm.
+
+Further, there is not a Protestant body except the Unitarian, which
+would not declare Justin himself a heretic, on account of his doctrine
+of the inferior godship of the Logos; while I am very much afraid
+that, in strict logic, Dr. Wace would be under the necessity, so
+painful to him, of calling him an "infidel," on the same and on other
+grounds.
+
+Now let us turn to our other authority. If there is any result of
+critical investigations of the sources of Christianity which is
+certain,[76] it is that Paul of Tarsus wrote the Epistle to the
+Galatians somewhere between the years 55 and 60 A.D., that is to say,
+roughly, twenty, or five-and-twenty years after the crucifixion. If
+this is so, the Epistle to the Galatians is one of the oldest, if not
+the very oldest, of extant documentary evidences of the state of the
+primitive Church. And, be it observed, if it is Paul's writing, it
+unquestionably furnishes us with the evidence of a participator in the
+transactions narrated. With the exception of two or three of the other
+Pauline Epistles, there is not one solitary book in the New Testament
+of the authorship and authority of which we have such good evidence.
+
+And what is the state of things we find disclosed? A bitter quarrel,
+in his account of which Paul by no means minces matters, or hesitates
+to hurl defiant sarcasms against those who were "reputed to be
+pillars": James "the brother of the Lord," Peter, the rock on whom
+Jesus is said to have built his Church, and John, "the beloved
+disciple." And no deference toward "the rock" withholds Paul from
+charging Peter to his face with "dissimulation."
+
+The subject of the hot dispute was simply this. Were Gentile converts
+bound to obey the Law or not? Paul answered in the negative; and,
+acting upon his opinion, he had created at Antioch (and elsewhere) a
+specifically "Christian" community, the sole qualifications for
+admission into which were the confession of the belief that Jesus was
+the Messiah, and baptism upon that confession. In the epistle in
+question, Paul puts this--his "gospel," as he calls it--in its most
+extreme form. Not only does he deny the necessity of conformity with
+the Law, but he declares such conformity to have a negative value.
+"Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye receive circumcision,
+Christ will profit you nothing" (Galatians v. 2). He calls the legal
+observances "beggarly rudiments," and anathematises every one who
+preaches to the Galatians any other gospel than his own. That is to
+say, by direct consequence, he anathematises the Nazarenes of
+Jerusalem, whose zeal for the Law is testified by James in a passage
+of the Acts cited further on. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
+dealing with the question of eating meat offered to idols, it is clear
+that Paul himself thinks it a matter of indifference; but he advises
+that it should not he done, for the sake of the weaker brethren. On
+the other hand, the Nazarenes of Jerusalem most strenuously opposed
+Paul's "gospel," insisting on every convert becoming a regular Jewish
+proselyte, and consequently on his observance of the whole Law; and
+this party was led by James and Peter and John (Galatians ii. 9). Paul
+does not suggest that the question of principle was settled by the
+discussion referred to in Galatians. All he says is, that it ended in
+the practical agreement that he and Barnabas should do as they had
+been doing, in respect to the Gentiles; while James and Peter and John
+should deal in their own fashion with Jewish converts. Afterwards, he
+complains bitterly of Peter, because, when on a visit to Antioch, he,
+at first, inclined to Paul's view and ate with the Gentile converts;
+but when "certain came from James," "drew back, and separated himself,
+fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews
+dissembled likewise with him; insomuch as even Barnabas was carried
+away with their dissimulation" (Galatians ii. 12-13).
+
+There is but one conclusion to be drawn from Paul's account of this
+famous dispute, the settlement of which determined the fortunes of
+the nascent religion. It is that the disciples at Jerusalem, headed by
+"James, the Lord's brother," and by the leading apostles, Peter and
+John, were strict Jews, who had objected to admit any converts into
+their body, unless these, either by birth, or by becoming proselytes,
+were also strict Jews. In fact, the sole difference between James and
+Peter and John, with the body of the disciples whom they led and the
+Jews by whom they were surrounded, and with whom they, for many years,
+shared the religious observances of the Temple, was that they believed
+that the Messiah, whom the leaders of the nation yet looked for, had
+already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
+
+The Acts of the Apostles is hardly a very trustworthy history; it is
+certainly of later date than the Pauline Epistles, supposing them to
+be genuine. And the writer's version of the conference of which Paul
+gives so graphic a description, if that is correct, is unmistakably
+coloured with all the art of a reconciler, anxious to cover up a
+scandal. But it is none the less instructive on this account. The
+judgment of the "council" delivered by James is that the Gentile
+converts shall merely "abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and
+from blood and from things strangled, and from fornication." But
+notwithstanding the accommodation in which the writer of the Acts
+would have us believe, the Jerusalem Church held to its endeavour to
+retain the observance of the Law. Long after the conference, some time
+after the writing of the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians,
+and immediately after the despatch of that to the Romans, Paul makes
+his last visit to Jerusalem, and presents himself to James and all the
+elders. And this is what the Acts tells us of the interview:--
+
+     And they said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many
+     thousands [or myriads] there are among the Jews of them
+     which have believed; and they are all zealous for the law;
+     and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou
+     teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to
+     forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their
+     children, neither to walk after the customs. (Acts xxi. 20,
+     21.)
+
+They therefore request that he should perform a certain public
+religious act in the Temple, in order that
+
+     all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof
+     they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou
+     thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law (_ibid_. 24).[77]
+
+How far Paul could do what he is here requested to do, and which the
+writer of the Acts goes on to say he did, with a clear conscience, if
+he wrote the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, I may leave
+any candid reader of these epistles to decide. The point to which I
+wish to direct attention is the declaration that the Jerusalem
+Church, led by the brother of Jesus and by his personal disciples and
+friends, twenty years and more after his death, consisted of strict
+and zealous Jews.
+
+Tertullus, the orator, caring very little about the internal
+dissensions of the followers of Jesus, speaks of Paul as a "ringleader
+of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts xxiv. 5), which must have affected
+James much in the same way as it would have moved the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in George Fox's day, to hear the latter called a
+"ringleader of the sect of Anglicans." In fact, "Nazarene" was, as is
+well known, the distinctive appellation applied to Jesus; his
+immediate followers were known as Nazarenes; while the congregation of
+the disciples, and, later, of converts at Jerusalem--the Jerusalem
+Church--was emphatically the "sect of the Nazarenes," no more, in
+itself, to be regarded as anything outside Judaism than the sect of
+the Sadducees, or that of the Essenes.[78] In fact, the tenets of both
+the Sadducees and the Essenes diverged much more widely from the
+Pharisaic standard of orthodoxy than Nazarenism did.
+
+Let us consider the condition of affairs now (A.D. 50-60) in relation
+to that which obtained in Justin's time, a century later. It is plain
+that the Nazarenes--presided over by James, "the brother of the Lord,"
+and comprising within their body all the twelve apostles--belonged to
+Justin's second category of "Jews who observe the Law, believe Jesus
+to be the Christ, but who insist on the observance of the Law by
+Gentile converts," up till the time at which the controversy reported
+by Paul arose. They then, according to Paul, simply allowed him to
+form his congregations of non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and
+elsewhere; and it would seem that it was to these converts, who would
+come under Justin's fifth category, that the title of "Christian" was
+first applied. If any of these Christians had acted upon the more than
+half-permission given by Paul, and had eaten meats offered to idols,
+they would have belonged to Justin's seventh category.
+
+Hence, it appears that, if Justin's opinion, which was probably that
+of the Church generally in the middle of the second century, was
+correct, James and Peter and John and their followers could not be
+saved; neither could Paul, if he carried into practice his views as to
+the indifference of eating meats offered to idols. Or, to put the
+matter another way, the centre of gravity of orthodoxy, which is at
+the extreme right of the series in the nineteenth century, was at the
+extreme left just before the middle of the first century, when the
+"sect of the Nazarenes" constituted the whole church founded by Jesus
+and the apostles; while, in the time of Justin, it lay mid-way between
+the two. It is therefore a profound mistake to imagine that the
+Jud�o-Christians (Nazarenes and Ebionites) of later times were
+heretical outgrowths from a primitive universalist "Christianity." On
+the contrary, the universalist "Christianity" is an outgrowth from the
+primitive, purely Jewish, Nazarenism; which, gradually eliminating all
+the ceremonial and dietary parts of the Jewish law, has thrust aside
+its parent, and all the intermediate stages of its development, into
+the position of damnable heresies.
+
+Such being the case, we are in a position to form a safe judgment of
+the limits within which the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth must have
+been confined. Ecclesiastical authority would have us believe that the
+words which are given at the end of the first Gospel, "Go ye,
+therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in
+the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," are part
+of the last commands of Jesus, issued at the moment of his parting
+with the eleven. If so, Peter and John must have heard these words;
+they are too plain to be misunderstood; and the occasion is too solemn
+for them ever to be forgotten. Yet the "Acts" tells us that Peter
+needed a vision to enable him so much as to baptize Cornelius; and
+Paul, in the Galatians, knows nothing of words which would have
+completely borne him out as against those who, though they heard, must
+be supposed to have either forgotten, or ignored them. On the other
+hand, Peter and John, who are supposed to have heard the "Sermon on
+the Mount," know nothing of the saying that Jesus had not come to
+destroy the Law, but that every jot and tittle of the Law must be
+fulfilled, which surely would have been pretty good evidence for their
+view of the question.
+
+We are sometimes told that the personal friends and daily companions
+of Jesus remained zealous Jews and opposed Paul's innovations, because
+they were hard of heart and dull of comprehension. This hypothesis is
+hardly in accordance with the concomitant faith of those who adopt it,
+in the miraculous insight and superhuman sagacity of their Master; nor
+do I see any way of getting it to harmonise with the orthodox
+postulate; namely, that Matthew was the author of the first gospel and
+John of the fourth. If that is so, then, most assuredly, Matthew was
+no dullard; and as for the fourth gospel--a theosophic romance of the
+first order--it could have been written by none but a man of
+remarkable literary capacity, who had drunk deep of Alexandrian
+philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine of the writer of the fourth gospel
+is more remote from that of the "sect of the Nazarenes" than is that
+of Paul himself. I am quite aware that orthodox critics have been
+capable of maintaining that John, the Nazarene, who was probably well
+past fifty years of age, when he is supposed to have written the most
+thoroughly Judaising book in the New Testament--the Apocalypse--in the
+roughest of Greek, underwent an astounding metamorphosis of both
+doctrine and style by the time he reached the ripe age of ninety or
+so, and provided the world with a history in which the acutest critic
+cannot [always] make out where the speeches of Jesus end and the text
+of the narrative begins; while that narrative is utterly
+irreconcilable, in regard to matters of fact, with that of his
+fellow-apostle, Matthew.
+
+The end of the whole matter is this:--The "sect of the Nazarenes," the
+brother and the immediate followers of Jesus, commissioned by him as
+apostles, and those who were taught by them up to the year 50 A.D.,
+were not "Christians" in the sense in which that term has been
+understood ever since its asserted origin at Antioch, but Jews--strict
+orthodox Jews--whose belief in the Messiahship of Jesus never led to
+their exclusion from the Temple services, nor would have shut them out
+from the wide embrace of Judaism.[79] The open proclamation of their
+special view about the Messiah was doubtless offensive to the
+Pharisees, just as rampant Low Churchism is offensive to bigoted High
+Churchism in our own country; or as any kind of dissent is offensive
+to fervid religionists of all creeds. To the Sadducees, no doubt, the
+political danger of any Messianic movement was serious; and they would
+have been glad to put down Nazarenism, lest it should end in useless
+rebellion against their Roman masters, like that other Galilean
+movement headed by Judas, a generation earlier. Galilee was always a
+hotbed of seditious enthusiasm against the rule of Rome; and high
+priest and procurator alike had need to keep a sharp eye upon natives
+of that district. On the whole, however, the Nazarenes were but little
+troubled for the first twenty years of their existence; and the
+undying hatred of the Jews against those later converts, whom they
+regarded as apostates and fautors of a sham Judaism, was awakened by
+Paul. From their point of view, he was a mere renegade Jew, opposed
+alike to orthodox Judaism and to orthodox Nazarenism; and whose
+teachings threatened Judaism with destruction. And, from their point
+of view, they were quite right. In the course of a century, Pauline
+influences had a large share in driving primitive Nazarenism from
+being the very heart of the new faith into the position of scouted
+error; and the spirit of Paul's doctrine continued its work of
+driving Christianity farther and farther away from Judaism, until
+"meats offered to idols" might be eaten without scruple, while the
+Nazarene methods of observing even the Sabbath, or the Passover, were
+branded with the mark of Judaising heresy.
+
+But if the primitive Nazarenes of whom the Acts speak were orthodox
+Jews, what sort of probability can there be that Jesus was anything
+else? How can he have founded the universal religion which was not
+heard of till twenty years after his death?[80] That Jesus possessed,
+in a rare degree, the gift of attaching men to his person and to his
+fortunes; that he was the author of many a striking saying, and the
+advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have
+disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and
+appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which
+constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets
+of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last
+scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of
+Isaiah, may be, as I think it is, extremely probable. But all this
+involves not a step beyond the borders of orthodox Judaism. Again,
+who is to say whether Jesus proclaimed himself the veritable Messiah,
+expected by his nation since the appearance of the pseudoprophetic
+work of Daniel, a century and a half before his time; or whether the
+enthusiasm of his followers gradually forced him to assume that
+position?
+
+But one thing is quite certain: if that belief in the speedy second
+coming of the Messiah which was shared by all parties in the primitive
+Church, whether Nazarene or Pauline; which Jesus is made to prophesy,
+over and over again, in the Synoptic gospels; and which dominated the
+life of Christians during the first century after the crucifixion;--if
+he believed and taught that, then assuredly he was under an illusion,
+and he is responsible for that which the mere effluxion of time has
+demonstrated to be a prodigious error.
+
+When I ventured to doubt "whether any Protestant theologian who has a
+reputation to lose will say that he believes the Gadarene story," it
+appears that I reckoned without Dr. Wace, who, referring to this
+passage in my paper, says:--
+
+     He will judge whether I fall under his description; but I
+     repeat that I believe it, and that he has removed the only
+     objection to my believing it (p. 363).
+
+Far be it from me to set myself up as a judge of any such delicate
+question as that put before me; but I think I may venture to express
+the conviction that, in the matter of courage, Dr. Wace has raised for
+himself a monument _�re perennius._ For really, in my poor judgment, a
+certain splendid intrepidity, such as one admires in the leader of a
+forlorn hope, is manifested by Dr. Wace when he solemnly affirms that
+he believes the Gadarene story on the evidence offered. I feel less
+complimented perhaps than I ought to do, when I am told that I have
+been an accomplice in extinguishing in Dr. Wace's mind the last
+glimmer of doubt which common sense may have suggested. In fact, I
+must disclaim all responsibility for the use to which the information
+I supplied has been put. I formally decline to admit that the
+expression of my ignorance whether devils, in the existence of which I
+do not believe, if they did exist, might or might not be made to go
+out of men into pigs, can, as a matter of logic, have been of any use
+whatever to a person who already believed in devils and in the
+historical accuracy of the gospels.
+
+Of the Gadarene story, Dr. Wace, with all solemnity and twice over,
+affirms that he "believes it." I am sorry to trouble him further, but
+what does he mean by "it"? Because there are two stories, one in
+"Mark" and "Luke," and the other in "Matthew." In the former, which I
+quoted in my previous paper, there is one possessed man; in the
+latter there are two. The story is told fully, with the vigorous
+homely diction and the picturesque details of a piece of folklore, in
+the second gospel. The immediately antecedent event is the storm on
+the Lake of Gennesaret. The immediately consequent events are the
+message from the ruler of the synagogue and the healing of the woman
+with an issue of blood. In the third gospel, the order of events is
+exactly the same, and there is an extremely close general and verbal
+correspondence between the narratives of the miracle. Both agree in
+stating that there was only one possessed man, and that he was the
+residence of many devils, whose name was "Legion."
+
+In the first gospel, the event which immediately precedes the Gadarene
+affair is, as before, the storm; the message from the ruler and the
+healing of the issue are separated from it by the accounts of the
+healing of a paralytic, of the calling of Matthew, and of a discussion
+with some Pharisees. Again, while the second gospel speaks of the
+country of the "Gerasenes" as the locality of the event, the third
+gospel has "Gerasenes," "Gergesenes," and "Gadarenes" in different
+ancient MSS.; while the first has "Gadarenes."
+
+The really important points to be noticed, however, in the narrative
+of the first gospel, are these--that there are two possessed men
+instead of one; and that while the story is abbreviated by omissions,
+what there is of it is often verbally identical with the corresponding
+passages in the other two gospels. The most unabashed of reconcilers
+cannot well say that one man is the same as two, or two as one; and,
+though the suggestion really has been made, that two different
+miracles, agreeing in all essential particulars, except the number of
+the possessed, were effected immediately after the storm on the lake,
+I should be sorry to accuse any one of seriously adopting it. Nor will
+it he pretended that the allegory refuge is accessible in this
+particular case.
+
+So, when Dr. Wace says that he believes in the synoptic evangelists'
+account of the miraculous bedevilment of swine, I may fairly ask which
+of them does he believe? Does he hold by the one evangelist's story,
+or by that of the two evangelists? And having made his election, what
+reasons has he to give for his choice? If it is suggested that the
+witness of two is to be taken against that of one, not only is the
+testimony dealt with in that common-sense fashion against which the
+theologians of his school protest so warmly; not only is all question
+of inspiration at an end, but the further inquiry arises, After all,
+is it the testimony of two against one? Are the authors of the
+versions in the second and third gospels really independent witnesses?
+In order to answer this question, it is only needful to place the
+English versions of the two side by side, and compare them carefully.
+It will then be seen that the coincidences between them, not merely in
+substance, but in arrangement, and in the use of identical words in
+the same order, are such, that only two alternatives are conceivable:
+either one evangelist freely copied from the other, or both based
+themselves upon a common source, which may either have been a written
+document, or a definite oral tradition learned by heart. Assuredly,
+these two testimonies are not those of independent witnesses. Further,
+when the narrative in the first gospel is compared with that in the
+other two, the same fact comes out.
+
+Supposing, then, that Dr. Wace is right in his assumption that
+Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote the works which we find attributed to
+them by tradition, what is the value of their agreement, even that
+something more or less like this particular miracle occurred, since it
+is demonstrable, either that all depend on some antecedent statement,
+of the authorship of which nothing is known, or that two are dependent
+upon the third?
+
+Dr. Wace says he believes the Gadarene story; whichever version of it
+he accepts, therefore, he believes that Jesus said what he is stated
+in all the versions to have said, and thereby virtually declared that
+the theory of the nature of the spiritual world involved in the story
+is true. Now I hold that this theory is false, that it is a monstrous
+and mischievous fiction; and I unhesitatingly express my disbelief in
+any assertion that it is true, by whomsoever made. So that, if Dr.
+Wace is right in his belief, he is also quite right in classing me
+among the people he calls "infidels"; and although I cannot fulfil the
+eccentric expectation that I shall glory in a title which, from my
+point of view, it would be simply silly to adopt, I certainly shall
+rejoice not to be reckoned among "Christians" so long as the
+profession of belief in such stories as the Gadarene pig affair, on
+the strength of a tradition of unknown origin, of which two discrepant
+reports, also of unknown origin, alone remain, forms any part of the
+Christian faith. And, although I have, more than once, repudiated the
+gift of prophecy, yet I think I may venture to express the
+anticipation, that if "Christians" generally are going to follow the
+line taken by Dr. Wace, it will not be long before all men of common
+sense qualify for a place among the "infidels."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [64] I may perhaps return to the question of the authorship
+          of the Gospels. For the present I must content myself
+          with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr.
+          Wace's statements as to the results arrived at by
+          modern criticism. They are as gravely as surprisingly
+          erroneous.
+
+     [65] The United States ought, perhaps, to be added, but
+          I am not sure.
+
+     [66] Imagine that all our chairs of astronomy had been
+          founded in the fourteenth century, and that their
+          incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In
+          that case, with every respect for the efforts of
+          persons thus hampered to attain and expound the truth,
+          I think men of common sense would go elsewhere to learn
+          astronomy. Zeller's _Vortr�ge und Abhandlungen_ were
+          published and came into my hands a quarter of a century
+          ago. The writer's rank, as a theologian to begin with,
+          and subsequently as a historian of Greek philosophy, is
+          of the highest. Among these essays are two--_Das
+          Urchirstenthum_ and _Die T�binger historische
+          Schule_--which are likely to be of more use to those
+          who wish to know the real state of the case than all
+          that the official "apologists," with their one eye on
+          truth and the other on the tenets of their sect, have
+          written. For the opinion of a scientific theologian
+          about theologians of this stamp see pp. 225 and 227 of
+          the _Vortr�ge_.
+
+     [67] I suppose this is what Dr. Wace is thinking about when
+          he says that I allege that there "is no visible escape"
+          from the supposition of an _Ur-Marcus_ (p. 367). That a
+          "theologian of repute" should confound an indisputable
+          fact with one of the modes of explaining that fact is
+          not so singular as those who are unaccustomed to the
+          ways of theologians might imagine.
+
+     [68] Any examiner whose duty it has been to examine into a
+          case of "copying" will be particularly well prepared to
+          appreciate the force of the case stated in that most
+          excellent little book, _The Common Tradition of the
+          Synoptic Gospels_, by Dr. Abbott and Mr. Rushbrooke
+          (Macmillan, 1884). To those who have not passed through
+          such painful experiences I may recommend the brief
+          discussion of the genuineness of the "Casket Letters"
+          in my friend Mr. Skelton's interesting book, _Maitland
+          of Lethington_. The second edition of Holtzmann's
+          _Lehrbuch_, published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair
+          and full account of the present results of criticism.
+          At p. 366 he writes that the present burning question
+          is whether the "relatively primitive narrative and the
+          root of the other synoptic texts is contained in
+          Matthew or in Mark. It is only on this point that
+          properly-informed (_sachkundige_) critics differ," and
+          he decides in favour of Mark.
+
+     [69] Holtzmann (_Die synoptischen Evangelien_, 1863, p. 75),
+          following Ewald, argues that the "Source A" (= the
+          threefold tradition, more or less) contained something
+          that answered to the "Sermon on the Plain" immediately
+          after the words of our present Mark, "And he cometh
+          into a house" (iii. 19). But what conceivable motive
+          could "Mark" have for omitting it? Holtzmann has no
+          doubt, however, that the "Sermon on the Mount" is a
+          compilation, or, as he calls it in his
+          recently-published _Lehrbuch_ (p. 372), "an artificial
+          mosaic work."
+
+     [70] See Sch�rer, _Geschichte des j�dischen Volkes_,
+          Zweiter Thiel, p. 384.
+
+     [71] Spacious, because a young man could sit in it "on the
+          right side" (xv. 5), and therefore with plenty of room
+          to spare.
+
+     [72] King Herod had not the least difficulty in supposing
+          the resurrection of John the Baptist--"John, whom I
+          beheaded, he is risen" (Mark vi. 16).
+
+     [73] I am very sorry for the interpolated "in," because
+          citation ought to be accurate in small things as in
+          great. But what difference it makes whether one
+          "believes Jesus" or "believes in Jesus" much thought
+          has not enabled me to discover. If you "believe him"
+          you must believe him to be what he professed to
+          be--that is, "believe in him;" and if you "believe in
+          him" you must necessarily "believe him."
+
+     [74] True for Justin: but there is a school of theological
+          critics, who more or less question the historical
+          reality of Paul, and the genuineness of even the four
+          cardinal epistles.
+
+     [75] See _Dial. cum Tryphone_, �47 and �35. It is to be
+          understood that Justin does not arrange these
+          categories in order, as I have done.
+
+     [76] I guard myself against being supposed to affirm that
+          even the four cardinal epistles of Paul may not have
+          been seriously tampered with. See note 1, p. 287 above.
+
+     [77] Paul, in fact, is required to commit in Jerusalem, an act
+          of the same character as that which he brands as
+          "dissimulation" on the part of Peter in Antioch.
+
+     [78] All this was quite clearly pointed out by Ritschl nearly
+          forty years ago. See _Die Entstchung der
+          alt-katholischen Kirche_ (1850), p. 108.
+
+     [79] "If every one was baptized as soon as he acknowledged
+          Jesus to be the Messiah, the first Christians can have
+          been aware of no other essential differences from the
+          Jews."--Zeller, _Vortr�ge_ (1865), p. 26.
+
+     [80] Dr. Harnack, in the lately-published second edition of
+          his _Dogmengeschichte_, says (p. 39), "Jesus Christ
+          brought forward no new doctrine;" and again (p. 65),
+          "It is not difficult to set against every portion of
+          the utterances of Jesus an observation which deprives
+          him of originality." See also Zusatz 4, on the same
+          page.
+
+
+
+
+IX: AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
+
+[1889]
+
+Nemo ergo ex me scire qu�rat, quod me nescire scio, nisi
+forte ut nescire discat.--AUGUSTINUS, _De Civ. Dei_, xii. 7.
+
+
+[81] The present discussion has arisen out of the use, which has
+become general in the last few years, of the terms "Agnostic" and
+"Agnosticism."
+
+The people who call themselves "Agnostics" have been charged with
+doing so because they have not the courage to declare themselves
+"Infidels." It has been insinuated that they have adopted a new name
+in order to escape the unpleasantness which attaches to their proper
+denomination. To this wholly erroneous imputation, I have replied by
+showing that the term "Agnostic" did, as a matter of fact, arise in a
+manner which negatives it; and my statement has not been, and cannot
+be, refuted. Moreover, speaking for myself, and without impugning the
+right of any other person to use the term in another sense, I further
+say that Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed,
+nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses
+absolute faith in the validity of a principle, which is as much
+ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways,
+but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he
+is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can
+produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is
+what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is
+essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as
+immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which
+men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and
+that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in
+such inadequately supported propositions. The justification of the
+Agnostic principle lies in the success which follows upon its
+application, whether in the field of natural, or in that of civil,
+history; and in the fact that, so far as these topics are concerned,
+no sane man thinks of denying its validity.
+
+Still speaking for myself, I add, that though Agnosticism is not, and
+cannot be, a creed, except in so far as its general principle is
+concerned; yet that the application of that principle results in the
+denial of, or the suspension of judgment concerning, a number of
+propositions respecting which our contemporary ecclesiastical
+"gnostics" profess entire certainty. And, in so far as these
+ecclesiastical persons can be justified in their old-established
+custom (which many nowadays think more honoured in the breach than the
+observance) of using opprobrious names to those who differ from them,
+I fully admit their right to call me and those who think with me
+"Infidels"; all I have ventured to urge is that they must not expect
+us to speak of ourselves by that title.
+
+The extent of the region of the uncertain, the number of the problems
+the investigation of which ends in a verdict of not proven, will vary
+according to the knowledge and the intellectual habits of the
+individual Agnostic. I do not very much care to speak of anything as
+"unknowable."[82] What I am sure about is that there are many topics
+about which I know nothing; and which, so far as I can see, are out of
+reach of my faculties. But whether these things are knowable by any
+one else is exactly one of those matters which is beyond my knowledge,
+though I may have a tolerably strong opinion as to the probabilities
+of the case. Relatively to myself, I am quite sure that the region of
+uncertainty--the nebulous country in which words play the part of
+realities--is far more extensive than I could wish. Materialism and
+Idealism; Theism and Atheism; the doctrine of the soul and its
+mortality or immortality--appear in the history of philosophy like the
+shades of Scandinavian heroes, eternally slaying one another and
+eternally coming to life again in a metaphysical "Nifelheim." It is
+getting on for twenty-five centuries, at least, since mankind began
+seriously to give their minds to these topics. Generation after
+generation, philosophy has been doomed to roll the stone uphill; and,
+just as all the world swore it was at the top, down it has rolled to
+the bottom again. All this is written in innumerable books; and he who
+will toil through them will discover that the stone is just where it
+was when the work began. Hume saw this; Kant saw it; since their time,
+more and more eyes have been cleansed of the films which prevented
+them from seeing it; until now the weight and number of those who
+refuse to be the prey of verbal mystifications has begun to tell in
+practical life.
+
+It was inevitable that a conflict should arise between Agnosticism and
+Theology; or rather, I ought to say, between Agnosticism and
+Ecclesiasticism. For Theology, the science, is one thing; and
+Ecclesiasticism, the championship of a foregone conclusion[83] as to
+the truth of a particular form of Theology, is another. With
+scientific Theology, Agnosticism has no quarrel. On the contrary, the
+Agnostic, knowing too well the influence of prejudice and
+idiosyncrasy, even on those who desire most earnestly to be impartial,
+can wish for nothing more urgently than that the scientific theologian
+should not only be at perfect liberty to thresh out the matter in his
+own fashion; but that he should, if he can, find flaws in the Agnostic
+position; and, even if demonstration is not to be had, that he should
+put, in their full force, the grounds of the conclusions he thinks
+probable. The scientific theologian admits the Agnostic principle,
+however widely his results may differ from those reached by the
+majority of Agnostics.
+
+But, as between Agnosticism and Ecclesiasticism, or, as our neighbours
+across the Channel call it, Clericalism, there can be neither peace
+nor truce. The Cleric asserts that it is morally wrong not to believe
+certain propositions, whatever the results of a strict scientific
+investigation of the evidence of these propositions. He tells us "that
+religious error is, in itself, of an immoral nature."[84] He declares
+that he has prejudged certain conclusions, and looks upon those who
+show cause for arrest of judgment as emissaries of Satan. It
+necessarily follows that, for him, the attainment of faith, not the
+ascertainment of truth, is the highest aim of mental life. And, on
+careful analysis of the nature of this faith, it will too often be
+found to be, not the mystic process of unity with the Divine,
+understood by the religious enthusiast; but that which the candid
+simplicity of a Sunday scholar once defined it to be. "Faith," said
+this unconscious plagiarist of Tertullian, "is the power of saying you
+believe things which are incredible."
+
+Now I, and many other Agnostics, believe that faith, in this sense, is
+an abomination; and though we do not indulge in the luxury of
+self-righteousness so far as to call those who are not of our way of
+thinking hard names, we do not feel that the disagreement between
+ourselves and those who hold this doctrine is even more moral than
+intellectual. It is desirable there should be an end of any mistakes
+on this topic. If our clerical opponents were clearly aware of the
+real state of the case, there would be an end of the curious delusion,
+which often appears between the lines of their writings, that those
+whom they are so fond of calling "Infidels" are people who not only
+ought to be, but in their hearts are, ashamed of themselves. It would
+be discourteous to do more than hint the antipodal opposition of this
+pleasant dream of theirs to facts.
+
+The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us, that if we refuse
+to admit that there is good ground for expressing definite convictions
+about certain topics, the bonds of human society will dissolve and
+mankind lapse into savagery. There are several answers to this
+assertion. One is that the bonds of human society were formed without
+the aid of their theology; and, in the opinion of not a few competent
+judges, have been weakened rather than strengthened by a good deal of
+it. Greek science, Greek art, the ethics of old Israel, the social
+organisation of old Rome, contrived to come into being, without the
+help of any one who believed in a single distinctive article of the
+simplest of the Christian creeds. The science, the art, the
+jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern
+world have grown out of those of Greece and Rome--not by favour of,
+but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity,
+to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of
+this world, were alike despicable.
+
+Again, all that is best in the ethics of the modern world, in so far
+as it has not grown out of Greek thought, or Barbarian manhood, is the
+direct development of the ethics of old Israel. There is no code of
+legislation, ancient or modern, at once so just and so merciful, so
+tender to the weak and poor, as the Jewish law; and, if the Gospels
+are to be trusted, Jesus of Nazareth himself declared that he taught
+nothing but that which lay implicitly, or explicitly, in the religious
+and ethical system of his people.
+
+     And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast
+     well said that he is one; and there is none other but he,
+     and to love him with all the heart, and with all the
+     understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his
+     neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt
+     offerings and sacrifices. (Mark xii. 32, 33.)
+
+Here is the briefest of summaries of the teaching of the prophets of
+Israel of the eighth century; does the Teacher, whose doctrine is thus
+set forth in his presence, repudiate the exposition? Nay; we are told,
+on the contrary, that Jesus saw that he "answered discreetly," and
+replied, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."
+
+So that I think that even if the creeds, from the so-called
+"Apostles," to the so-called "Athanasian," were swept into oblivion;
+and even if the human race should arrive at the conclusion that,
+whether a bishop washes a cup or leaves it unwashed, is not a matter
+of the least consequence, it will get on very well. The causes which
+have led to the development of morality in mankind, which have guided
+or impelled us all the way from the savage to the civilised state,
+will not cease to operate because a number of ecclesiastical
+hypotheses turn out to be baseless. And, even if the absurd notion
+that morality is more the child of speculation than of practical
+necessity and inherited instinct, had any foundation; if all the world
+is going to thieve, murder, and otherwise misconduct itself as soon as
+it discovers that certain portions of ancient history are mythical,
+what is the relevance of such arguments to any one who holds by the
+Agnostic principle?
+
+Surely, the attempt to cast out Beelzebub by the aid of Beelzebub is a
+hopeful procedure as compared to that of preserving morality by the
+aid of immorality. For I suppose it is admitted that an Agnostic may
+be perfectly sincere, may be competent, and may have studied the
+question at issue with as much care as his clerical opponents. But, if
+the Agnostic really believes what he says, the "dreadful consequence"
+argufier (consistently, I admit, with his own principles) virtually
+asks him to abstain from telling the truth, or to say what he believes
+to be untrue, because of the supposed injurious consequences to
+morality. "Beloved brethren, that we may be spotlessly moral, before
+all things let us lie," is the sum total of many an exhortation
+addressed to the "Infidel." Now, as I have already pointed out, we
+cannot oblige our exhorters. We leave the practical application of the
+convenient doctrines of "Reserve" and "Non-natural interpretation" to
+those who invented them.
+
+I trust that I have now made amends for any ambiguity, or want of
+fulness, in my previous exposition of that which I hold to be the
+essence of the Agnostic doctrine. Henceforward, I might hope to hear
+no more of the assertion that we are necessarily Materialists,
+Idealists, Atheists, Theists, or any other _ists_, if experience had
+led me to think that the proved falsity of a statement was any
+guarantee against its repetition. And those who appreciate the nature
+of our position will see, at once, that when Ecclesiasticism declares
+that we ought to believe this, that, and the other, and are very
+wicked if we don't, it is impossible for us to give any answer but
+this: We have not the slightest objection to believe anything you
+like, if you will give us good grounds for belief; but, if you cannot,
+we must respectfully refuse, even if that refusal should wreck
+mortality and insure our own damnation several times over. We are
+quite content to leave that to the decision of the future. The course
+of the past has impressed us with the firm conviction that no good
+ever comes of falsehood, and we feel warranted in refusing even to
+experiment in that direction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the course of the present discussion it has been asserted that the
+"Sermon on the Mount" and the "Lord's Prayer" furnish a summary and
+condensed view of the essentials of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth,
+set forth by himself. Now this supposed _Summa_ of Nazarene theology
+distinctly affirms the existence of a spiritual world, of a Heaven,
+and of a Hell of fire; it teaches the Fatherhood of God and the
+malignity of the Devil; it declares the superintending providence of
+the former and our need of deliverance from the machinations of the
+latter; it affirms the fact of demoniac possession and the power of
+casting out devils by the faithful. And from these premises, the
+conclusion is drawn, that those Agnostics who deny that there is any
+evidence of such a character as to justify certainty, respecting the
+existence and the nature of the spiritual world, contradict the
+express declarations of Jesus. I have replied to this argumentation by
+showing that there is strong reason to doubt the historical accuracy
+of the attribution to Jesus of either the "Sermon on the Mount" or the
+"Lord's Prayer"; and, therefore, that the conclusion in question is
+not warranted, at any rate, on the grounds set forth.
+
+But, whether the Gospels contain trustworthy statements about this and
+other alleged historical facts or not, it is quite certain that from
+them, taken together with the other books of the New Testament, we may
+collect a pretty complete exposition of that theory of the spiritual
+world which was held by both Nazarenes and Christians; and which was
+undoubtedly supposed by them to be fully sanctioned by Jesus, though
+it is just as clear that they did not imagine it contained any
+revelation by him of something heretofore unknown. If the
+pneumatological doctrine which pervades the whole New Testament is
+nowhere systematically stated, it is everywhere assumed. The writers
+of the Gospels and of the Acts take it for granted, as a matter of
+common knowledge; and it is easy to gather from these sources a series
+of propositions, which only need arrangement to form a complete
+system.
+
+In this system, Man is considered to be a duality formed of a
+spiritual element, the soul; and a corporeal[85] element, the body.
+And this duality is repeated in the Universe, which consists of a
+corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual world. The
+former consists of the earth, as its principal and central
+constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the
+earth is the air, and below is the watery abyss. Whether the heaven,
+which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell in, or below, the
+subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or incorporeal is not
+clear. However this may be, the heaven and the air, the earth and the
+abyss, are peopled by innumerable beings analogous in nature to the
+spiritual element in man, and these spirits are of two kinds, good and
+bad. The chief of the good spirits, infinitely superior to all the
+others, and their creator, as well as the creator of the corporeal
+world and of the bad spirits, is God. His residence is heaven, where
+he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good spirits; his angels, or
+messengers, and the executors of his will throughout the universe.
+
+On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Satan, _the_ devil
+_par excellence_. He and his company of demons are free to roam
+through all parts of the universe, except the heaven. These bad
+spirits are far superior to man in power and subtlety; and their whole
+energies are devoted to bringing physical and moral evils upon him,
+and to thwarting, so far as his power goes, the benevolent intentions
+of the Supreme Being. In fact, the souls and bodies of men form both
+the theatre and the prize of an incessant warfare between the good and
+the evil spirits--the powers of light and the powers of darkness. By
+leading Eve astray, Satan brought sin and death upon mankind. As the
+gods of the heathen, the demons are the founders and maintainers of
+idolatry; as the "powers of the air" they afflict mankind with
+pestilence and famine; as "unclean spirits" they cause disease of mind
+and body.
+
+The significance of the appearance of Jesus, in the capacity of the
+Messiah, or Christ, is the reversal of the satanic work by putting an
+end to both sin and death. He announces that the kingdom of God is at
+hand, when the "Prince of this world" shall be finally "cast out"
+(John xii. 31) from the cosmos, as Jesus, during his earthly career,
+cast him out from individuals. Then will Satan and all his devilry,
+along with the wicked whom they have seduced to their destruction, be
+hurled into the abyss of unquenchable fire--there to endure continual
+torture, without a hope of winning pardon from the merciful God, their
+Father; or of moving the glorified Messiah to one more act of pitiful
+intercession; or even of interrupting, by a momentary sympathy with
+their wretchedness, the harmonious psalmody of their brother angels
+and men, eternally lapped in bliss unspeakable.
+
+The straitest Protestant, who refuses to admit the existence of any
+source of Divine truth, except the Bible, will not deny that every
+point of the pneumatological theory here set forth has ample
+scriptural warranty. The Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the
+Apocalypse assert the existence of the devil, of his demons and of
+Hell, as plainly as they do that of God and his angels and Heaven. It
+is plain that the Messianic and the Satanic conceptions of the writers
+of these books are the obverse and the reverse of the same
+intellectual coinage. If we turn from Scripture to the traditions of
+the Fathers and the confessions of the Churches, it will appear that,
+in this one particular, at any rate, time has brought about no
+important deviation from primitive belief. From Justin onwards, it may
+often be a fair question whether God, or the devil, occupies a larger
+share of the attention of the Fathers. It is the devil who instigates
+the Roman authorities to persecute; the gods and goddesses of paganism
+are devils, and idolatry itself is an invention of Satan; if a saint
+falls away from grace, it is by the seduction of the demon; if heresy
+arises, the devil has suggested it; and some of the Fathers[86] go so
+far as to challenge the pagans to a sort of exorcising match, by way
+of testing the truth of Christianity. Medi�val Christianity is at one
+with patristic, on this head. The masses, the clergy, the theologians,
+and the philosophers alike, live and move and have their being in a
+world full of demons, in which sorcery and possession are everyday
+occurrences. Nor did the Reformation make any difference. Whatever
+else Luther assailed, he left the traditional demonology untouched;
+nor could any one have entertained a more hearty and uncompromising
+belief in the devil, than he and, at a later period, the Calvinistic
+fanatics of New England did. Finally, in these last years of the
+nineteenth century, the demonological hypotheses of the first century
+are, explicitly or implicitly, held and occasionally acted upon by the
+immense majority of Christians of all confessions.
+
+Only here and there has the progress of scientific thought, outside
+the ecclesiastical world, so far affected Christians, that they and
+their teachers fight shy of the demonology of their creed. They are
+fain to conceal their real disbelief in one half of Christian doctrine
+by judicious silence about it; or by flight to those refuges for the
+logically destitute, accommodation or allegory. But the faithful who
+fly to allegory in order to escape absurdity resemble nothing so much
+as the sheep in the fable who--to save their lives--jumped into the
+pit. The allegory pit is too commodious, is ready to swallow up so
+much more than one wants to put into it. If the story of the
+temptation is an allegory; if the early recognition of Jesus as the
+Son of God by the demons is an allegory; if the plain declaration of
+the writer of the first Epistle of John (iii. 8), "To this end was the
+Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil,"
+is allegorical, then the Pauline version of the Fall may be
+allegorical, and still more the words of consecration of the
+Eucharist, or the promise of the second coming; in fact, there is not
+a dogma of ecclesiastical Christianity the scriptural basis of which
+may not be whittled away by a similar process.
+
+As to accommodation, let any honest man who can read the New Testament
+ask himself whether Jesus and his immediate friends and disciples can
+be dishonoured more grossly than by the supposition that they said
+and did that which is attributed to them; while, in reality, they
+disbelieved in Satan and his demons, in possession and in
+exorcism?[87]
+
+An eminent theologian has justly observed that we have no right to
+look at the propositions of the Christian faith with one eye open and
+the other shut. (Tract 85, p. 29.) It really is not permissible to
+see, with one eye, that Jesus is affirmed to declare the personality
+and the Fatherhood of God, His loving providence and His accessibility
+to prayer; and to shut the other to the no less definite teaching
+ascribed to Jesus, in regard to the personality and the misanthropy of
+the devil, his malignant watchfulness, and his subjection to
+exorcistic formula and rites. Jesus is made to say that the devil "was
+a murderer from the beginning" (John viii. 44) by the same authority
+as that upon which we depend for his asserted declaration that "God is
+a spirit" (John iv. 24).
+
+To those who admit the authority of the famous Vincentian dictum that
+the doctrine which has been held "always, everywhere, and by all" is
+to be received as authoritative, the demonology must possess a higher
+sanction than any other Christian dogma, except, perhaps, those of the
+Resurrection and of the Messiahship of Jesus; for it would be
+difficult to name any other points of doctrine on which the Nazarene
+does not differ from the Christian, and the different historical
+stages and contemporary subdivisions of Christianity from one another.
+And, if the demonology is accepted, there can be no reason for
+rejecting all those miracles in which demons play a part. The Gadarene
+story fits into the general scheme of Christianity; and the evidence
+for "Legion" and their doings is just as good as any other in the New
+Testament for the doctrine which the story illustrates.
+
+It was with the purpose of bringing this great fact into prominence;
+of getting people to open both their eyes when they look at
+Ecclesiasticism; that I devoted so much space to that miraculous story
+which happens to be one of the best types of its class. And I could
+not wish for a better justification of the course I have adopted, than
+the fact that my heroically consistent adversary has declared his
+implicit belief in the Gadarene story and (by necessary consequence)
+in the Christian demonology as a whole. It must be obvious, by this
+time, that, if the account of the spiritual world given in the New
+Testament, professedly on the authority of Jesus, is true, then the
+demonological half of that account must be just as true as the other
+half. And, therefore, those who question the demonology, or try to
+explain it away, deny the truth of what Jesus said, and are, in
+ecclesiastical terminology, "Infidels" just as much as those who deny
+the spirituality of God. This is as plain as anything can well be, and
+the dilemma for my opponent was either to assert that the Gadarene
+pig-bedevilment actually occurred, or to write himself down an
+"Infidel." As was to be expected, he chose the former alternative; and
+I may express my great satisfaction at finding that there is one spot
+of common ground on which both he and I stand. So far as I can judge,
+we are agreed to state one of the broad issues between the
+consequences of agnostic principles (as I draw them), and the
+consequences of ecclesiastical dogmatism (as he accepts it), as
+follows.
+
+Ecclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an essential
+part of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of which it
+declares to be certified by Jesus.
+
+Agnosticism (_me judice_) says: There is no good evidence of the
+existence of a demoniac spiritual world, and much reason for doubting
+it.
+
+Hereupon the ecclesiastic may observe: Your doubt means that you
+disbelieve Jesus; therefore you are an "Infidel" instead of an
+"Agnostic." To which the agnostic may reply: No; for two reasons:
+first, because your evidence that Jesus said what you say he said is
+worth very little; and secondly, because a man may be an agnostic, in
+the sense of admitting he has no positive knowledge, and yet consider
+that he has more or less probable ground for accepting any given
+hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly
+declare that he has no means of knowing whether the planets generally
+are inhabited or not, and yet may think one of the two possible
+hypotheses more likely that the other, so he may admit that he has no
+means of knowing anything about the spiritual world, and yet may think
+one or other of the current views on the subject, to some extent,
+probable.
+
+The second answer is so obviously valid that it needs no discussion. I
+draw attention to it simply in justice to those agnostics who may
+attach greater value that I do to any sort of pneumatological
+speculations; and not because I wish to escape the responsibility of
+declaring that, whether Jesus sanctioned the demonological part of
+Christianity or not, I unhesitatingly reject it. The first answer, on
+the other hand, opens up the whole question of the claim of the
+biblical and other sources, from which hypotheses concerning the
+spiritual world are derived, to be regarded as unimpeachable
+historical evidence as to matters of fact.
+
+Now, in respect of the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives, I was
+anxious to get rid of the common assumption that the determination of
+the authorship and of the dates of these works is a matter of
+fundamental importance. That assumption is based upon the notion that
+what contemporary witnesses say must be true, or, at least, has always
+a _prim� facie_ claim to be so regarded; so that if the writers of any
+of the Gospels were contemporaries of the events (and still more if
+they were in the position of eye-witnesses) the miracles they narrate
+must be historically true, and, consequently, the demonology which
+they involve must be accepted. But the story of the "Translation of
+the blessed martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus," and the other
+considerations (to which endless additions might have been made from
+the Fathers and the medi�val writers) set forth in a preceding essay,
+yield, in my judgment, satisfactory proof that, where the miraculous
+is concerned, neither considerable intellectual ability, nor undoubted
+honesty, nor knowledge of the world, nor proved faithfulness as civil
+historians, nor profound piety, on the part of eye-witnesses and
+contemporaries, affords any guarantee of the objective truth of their
+statements, when we know that a firm belief in the miraculous was
+ingrained in their minds, and was the pre-supposition of their
+observations and reasonings.
+
+Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we have no
+real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of composition of the
+Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that nothing better than
+more or less probable guesses can be arrived at on that subject, I
+have not cared to expend any space on the question. It will be
+admitted, I suppose; that the authors of the works attributed to
+Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whoever they may be, are personages
+whose capacity and judgment in the narration of ordinary events are
+not quite so well certified as those of Eginhard; and we have seen
+what the value of Eginhard's evidence is when the miraculous is in
+question.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have been careful to explain that the arguments which I have used in
+the course of this discussion are not new; that they are historical
+and have nothing to do with what is commonly called science; and that
+they are all, to the best of my belief, to be found in the works of
+theologians of repute.
+
+The position which I have taken up, that the evidence in favour of
+such miracles as those recorded by Eginhard, and consequently of
+medi�val demonology, is quite as good as that in favour of such
+miracles as the Gadarene, and consequently of Nazarene demonology, is
+none of my discovery. Its strength was, wittingly or unwittingly,
+suggested, a century and a half ago, by a theological scholar of
+eminence; and it has been, if not exactly occupied, yet so fortified
+with bastions and redoubts by a living ecclesiastical Vauban, that, in
+my judgment, it has been rendered impregnable. In the early part of
+the last century, the ecclesiastical mind in this country was much
+exercised by the question, not exactly of miracles, the occurrence of
+which in biblical times was axiomatic, but by the problem: When did
+miracles cease? Anglican divines were quite sure that no miracles had
+happened in their day, nor for some time past; they were equally sure
+that they happened sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier. And it was
+a vital question for them to determine at what point of time, between
+this _terminus a quo_ and that _terminus ad quem_, miracles came to an
+end.
+
+The Anglicans and the Romanists agreed in the assumption that the
+possession of the gift of miracle-working was _prim� facie_ evidence
+of the soundness of the faith of the miracle-workers. The supposition
+that miraculous powers might be wielded by heretics (though it might
+be supported by high authority) led to consequences too frightful to
+be entertained by people who were busied in building their dogmatic
+house on the sands of early Church history. If, as the Romanists
+maintained, an unbroken series of genuine miracles adorned the records
+of their Church, throughout the whole of its existence, no Anglican
+could lightly venture to accuse them of doctrinal corruption. Hence,
+the Anglicans, who indulged in such accusations, were bound to prove
+the modern, the medi�val Roman, and the later Patristic miracles
+false; and to shut off the wonder-working power from the Church at
+the exact point of time when Anglican doctrine ceased and Roman
+doctrine began. With a little adjustment--a squeeze here and a pull
+there--the Christianity of the first three or four centuries might be
+made to fit, or seem to fit, pretty well into the Anglican scheme. So
+the miracles, from Justin say to Jerome, might be recognised; while,
+in later times, the Church having become "corrupt"--that is to say,
+having pursued one and the same line of development further than was
+pleasing to Anglicans--its alleged miracles must needs be shams and
+impostures.
+
+Under these circumstances, it may be imagined that the establishment
+of a scientific frontier between the earlier realm of supposed fact
+and the later of asserted delusion, had its difficulties; and torrents
+of theological special pleading about the subject flowed from clerical
+pens; until that learned and acute Anglican divine, Conyers Middleton,
+in his "Free Inquiry," tore the sophistical web they had laboriously
+woven to pieces, and demonstrated that the miracles of the patristic
+age, early and late, must stand or fall together, inasmuch as the
+evidence for the later is just as good as the evidence for the earlier
+wonders. If the one set are certified by contemporaneous witnesses of
+high repute, so are the other; and, in point of probability, there is
+not a pin to choose between the two. That is the solid and
+irrefragable, result of Middleton's contribution to the subject. But
+the Free Inquirer's freedom had its limits; and he draws a sharp line
+of demarcation between the patristic and the New Testament
+miracles--on the professed ground that the accounts of the latter,
+being inspired, are out of the reach of criticism.
+
+A century later, the question was taken up by another divine,
+Middleton's equal in learning and acuteness, and far his superior in
+subtlety and dialectic skill; who, though an Anglican, scorned the
+name of Protestant; and, while yet a Churchman, made it his business
+to parade, with infinite skill, the utter hollowness of the arguments
+of those of his brother Churchmen who dreamed that they could be both
+Anglicans and Protestants. The argument of the "Essay on the Miracles
+recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of the Early Ages"[88] by the
+present [1889] Roman Cardinal, but then Anglican Doctor, John Henry
+Newman, is compendiously stated by himself in the following passage:--
+
+     If the miracles of Church history cannot be defended by the
+     arguments of Leslie, Lyttleton, Paley, or Douglas, how many
+     of the Scripture miracles satisfy their conditions? (p. cvii).
+
+And, although the answer is not given in so many words, little doubt
+is left on the mind of the reader, that, in the mind of the writer,
+it is: None. In fact, this conclusion is one which cannot be resisted,
+if the argument in favour of the Scripture miracles is based upon that
+which laymen, whether lawyers, or men of science, or historians, or
+ordinary men of affairs, call evidence. But there is something really
+impressive in the magnificent contempt with which, at times, Dr.
+Newman sweeps aside alike those who offer and those who demand such
+evidence.
+
+     Some infidel authors advise us to accept no miracles which
+     would not have a verdict in their favour in a court of
+     justice; that is, they employ against Scripture a weapon
+     which Protestants would confine to attacks upon the Church;
+     as if moral and religious questions required legal proof,
+     and evidence were the test of truth[89] (p. cvii).
+
+"As if evidence were the test of truth"!--although the truth in
+question is the occurrence, or the non-occurrence, of certain
+phenomena at a certain time and in a certain place. This sudden
+revelation of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical and the
+scientific mind is enough to take away the breath of any one
+unfamiliar with the clerical organon. As if, one may retort, the
+assumption that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a religious
+end, in any way alters the fact that they profess to be historical
+events, things that actually happened; and, as such, must needs be
+exactly those subjects about which evidence is appropriate and legal
+proofs (which are such merely because they afford adequate evidence)
+may be justly demanded. The Gadarene miracle either happened, or it
+did not. Whether the Gadarene "question" is moral or religious, or
+not, has nothing to do with the fact that it is a purely historical
+question whether the demons said what they are declared to have said,
+and the devil-possessed pigs did, or did not, rush over the heights
+bounding the Lake of Gennesaret on a certain day of a certain year,
+after A.D. 26 and before A.D. 36; for vague and uncertain as New
+Testament chronology is, I suppose it may be assumed that the event in
+question, if it happened at all, took place during the procuratorship
+of Pilate. If that is not a matter about which evidence ought to be
+required, and not only legal, but strict scientific proof demanded by
+sane men who are asked to believe the story--what is? Is a reasonable
+being to be seriously asked to credit statements which, to put the
+case gently, are not exactly probable, and on the acceptance or
+rejection of which his whole view of life may depend, without asking
+for as much "legal" proof as would send an alleged pickpocket to gaol,
+or as would suffice to prove the validity of a disputed will?
+
+"Infidel authors" (if, as I am assured, I may answer for them) will
+decline to waste time on mere darkenings of counsel of this sort; but
+to those Anglicans who accept his premises, Dr. Newman is a truly
+formidable antagonist. What, indeed, are they to reply when he puts
+the very pertinent question:--
+
+     whether persons who not merely question, but prejudge the
+     Ecclesiastical miracles on the ground of their want of
+     resemblance, whatever that be, to those contained in
+     Scripture--as if the Almighty could not do in the Christian
+     Church what He had not already done at the time of its
+     foundation, or under the Mosaic Covenant--whether such
+     reasoners are not siding with the sceptic,
+
+and
+
+     whether it is not a happy inconsistency by which they
+     continue to believe the Scriptures while they reject the
+     Church[90] (p. liii).
+
+Again, I invite Anglican orthodoxy to consider this passage:--
+
+     the narrative of the combats of St. Anthony with evil
+     spirits, is a development rather than a contradiction of
+     revelation, viz. of such texts as speak of Satan being cast
+     out by prayer and fasting. To be shocked, then, at the
+     miracles of Ecclesiastical history, or to ridicule them for
+     their strangeness, is no part of a scriptural philosophy
+     (pp. liii-liv).
+
+Further on, Dr. Newman declares that it has been admitted
+
+     that a distinct line can be drawn in point of character and
+     circumstance between the miracles of Scripture and of Church
+     history; but this is by no means the case (p. lv) ...
+     specimens are not wanting in the history of the Church, of
+     miracles as awful in their character and as momentous in
+     their effects as those which are recorded in Scripture. The
+     fire interrupting the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, and
+     the death of Arius, are instances, in Ecclesiastical
+     history, of such solemn events. On the other hand, difficult
+     instances in the Scripture history are such as these: the
+     serpent in Eden, the Ark, Jacob's vision for the
+     multiplication of his cattle, the speaking of Balaam's ass,
+     the axe swimming at Elisha's word, the miracle on the swine,
+     and various instances of prayers or prophecies, in which, as
+     in that of Noah's blessing and curse, words which seem the
+     result of private feeling are expressly or virtually
+     ascribed to a Divine suggestion (p. lvi).
+
+Who is to gainsay our ecclesiastical authority here? "Infidel authors"
+might be accused of a wish to ridicule the Scripture miracles by
+putting them on a level with the remarkable story about the fire which
+stopped the rebuilding of the Temple, or that about the death of
+Arius--but Dr. Newman is above suspicion. The pity is that his list of
+what he delicately terms "difficult" instances is so short. Why omit
+the manufacture of Eve out of Adam's rib, on the strict historical
+accuracy of which the chief argument of the defenders of an iniquitous
+portion of our present law depends? Why leave out the account of the
+"Bene Elohim" and their gallantries, on which a large part of the
+worst practices of the medi�val inquisitors into witchcraft was based?
+Why forget the angel who wrestled with Jacob, and, as the account
+suggests, somewhat over-stepped the bounds of fair play, at the end of
+the struggle? Surely, we must agree with Dr. Newman that, if all these
+camels have gone down, it savours of affectation to strain at such
+gnats as the sudden ailment of Arius in the midst of his deadly, if
+prayerful,[91] enemies; and the fiery explosion which stopped the
+Julian building operations. Though the _words_ of the "Conclusion" of
+the "Essay on Miracles" may, perhaps, be quoted against me, I may
+express my satisfaction at finding myself in substantial accordance
+with a theologian above all suspicion of heterodoxy. With all my
+heart, I can declare my belief that there is just as good reason for
+believing in the miraculous slaying of the man who fell short of the
+Athanasian power of affirming contradictories, with respect to the
+nature of the Godhead, as there is for believing in the stories of the
+serpent and the ark told in Genesis, the speaking of Balaam's ass in
+Numbers, or the floating of the axe, at Elisha's order, in the second
+book of Kings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is one of the peculiarities of a really sound argument that it is
+susceptible of the fullest development; and that it sometimes leads to
+conclusions unexpected by those who employ it. To my mind, it is
+impossible to refuse to follow Dr. Newman when he extends his
+reasoning, from the miracles of the patristic and medi�val ages
+backward in time, as far as miracles are recorded. But, if the rules
+of logic are valid, I feel compelled to extend the argument forwards
+to the alleged Roman miracles of the present day, which Dr. Newman
+might not have admitted, but which Cardinal Newman may hardly reject.
+Beyond question, there is as good, or perhaps better, evidence for the
+miracles worked by our Lady of Lourdes, as there is for the floating
+of Elisha's axe, or the speaking of Balaam's ass. But we must go still
+further; there is a modern system of thaumaturgy and demonology which
+is just as well certified as the ancient.[92] Veracious, excellent,
+sometimes learned and acute persons, even philosophers of no mean
+pretensions, testify to the "levitation" of bodies much heavier than
+Elisha's axe; to the existence of "spirits" who, to the mere tactile
+sense, have been indistinguishable from flesh and blood; and,
+occasionally, have wrested with all the vigour of Jacob's opponent;
+yet, further, to the speech, in the language of raps, of spiritual
+beings, whose discourses, in point of coherence and value, are far
+inferior to that of Balaam's humble but sagacious steed. I have not
+the smallest doubt that, if these were persecuting times, there is
+many a worthy "spiritualist" who would cheerfully go to the stake in
+support of his pneumatological faith; and furnish evidence, after
+Paley's own heart, in proof of the truth of his doctrines. Not a few
+modern divines, doubtless struck by the impossibility of refusing the
+spiritualist evidence, if the ecclesiastical evidence is accepted, and
+deprived of any _� priori_ objection by their implicit belief in
+Christian Demonology, show themselves ready to take poor Sludge
+seriously, and to believe that he is possessed by other devils than
+those of need, greed, and vainglory.
+
+Under these circumstances, it was to be expected, though it is none
+the less interesting to note the fact, that the arguments of the
+latest school of "spiritualists" present a wonderful family likeness
+to those which adorn the subtle disquisitions of the advocate of
+ecclesiastical miracles of forty years ago. It is unfortunate for the
+"spiritualists" that, over and over again, celebrated and trusted
+media, who really, in some respects, call to mind the Montanist[93]
+and gnostic seers of the second century, are either proved in courts
+of law to be fraudulent impostors; or, in sheer weariness, as it would
+seem, of the honest dupes who swear by them, spontaneously confess
+their long-continued iniquities, as the Fox women did the other day
+in New York.[94] But, whenever a catastrophe of this kind takes place,
+the believers are no wise dismayed by it. They freely admit that not
+only the media, but the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to
+lose sight of the elementary principles of right and wrong; and they
+triumphantly ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures
+disprove the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which
+have not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in this,
+they unconsciously plagiarise from the churchman, who just as freely
+admits that many ecclesiastical miracles may have been forged; and
+asks, with calm contempt, not only of legal proofs, but of
+common-sense probability, Why does it follow that none are to be
+supposed genuine? I must say, however, that the spiritualists, so far
+as I know, do not venture to outrage right reason so boldly as the
+ecclesiastics. They do not sneer at "evidence"; nor repudiate the
+requirement of legal proofs. In fact, there can be no doubt that the
+spiritualists produce better evidence for their manifestations than
+can be shown either for the miraculous death of Arius, or for the
+Invention of the Cross.[95]
+
+From the "levitation" of the axe at one end of a period of near three
+thousand years to the "levitation" of Sludge & Co. at the other end,
+there is a complete continuity of the miraculous, with every gradation,
+from the childish to the stupendous, from the gratification of a
+caprice to the illustration of sublime truth. There is no drawing a
+line in the series that might be set out of plausibly attested cases
+of spiritual intervention. If one is true, all may be true; if one is
+false, all may be false.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This is, to my mind, the inevitable result of that method of reasoning
+which is applied to the confutation of Protestantism, with so much
+success, by one of the acutest and subtlest disputants who have ever
+championed Ecclesiasticism--and one cannot put his claims to acuteness
+and subtlety higher.
+
+     ... the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If
+     ever there were a safe truth it is this.... "To be deep in
+     history is to cease to be a Protestant."[96]
+
+I have not a shadow of doubt that these anti-Protestant epigrams are
+profoundly true. But I have as little that, in the same sense, the
+"Christianity of history is not" Romanism; and that to be deeper in
+history is to cease to be a Romanist. The reasons which compel my
+doubts about the compatibility of the Roman doctrine, or any other
+form of Catholicism, with history, arise out of exactly the same line
+of argument as that adopted by Dr. Newman in the famous essay which I
+have just cited. If, with one hand, Dr. Newman has destroyed
+Protestantism, he has annihilated Romanism with the other; and the
+total result of his ambidextral efforts is to shake Christianity to
+its foundations. Nor was any one better aware that this must be the
+inevitable result of his arguments--if the world should refuse to
+accept Roman doctrines and Roman miracles--than the writer of Tract
+85.
+
+Dr. Newman made his choice and passed over to the Roman Church half a
+century ago. Some of those who were essentially in harmony with his
+views preceded, and many followed him. But many remained; and, as the
+quondam Puseyite and present Ritualistic party, they are continuing
+that work of sapping and mining the Protestantism of the Anglican
+Church which he and his friends so ably commenced. At the present
+time, they have no little claim to be considered victorious all along
+the line. I am old enough to recollect the small beginnings of the
+Tractarian party; and I am amazed when I consider the present position
+of their heirs. Their little leaven has leavened if not the whole,
+yet a very large lump of the Anglican Church; which is now pretty much
+of a preparatory school for Papistry. So that it really behoves
+Englishmen (who, as I have been informed by high authority, are all
+legally, members of the State Church, if they profess to belong to no
+other sect) to wake up to what that powerful organization is about,
+and whither it is tending. On this point, the writings of Dr. Newman,
+while he still remained within the Anglican fold, are a vast store of
+the best and the most authoritative information. His doctrines on
+Ecclesiastical miracles and on Development are the corner-stones of
+the Tractarian fabric. He believed that his arguments led either
+Romeward, or to what ecclesiastics call "Infidelity," and I call
+Agnosticism. I believe that he was quite right in this conviction; but
+while he chooses the one alternative, I choose the other; as he
+rejects Protestantism on the ground of its incompatibility with
+history, so, _a fortiori_, I conceive that Romanism ought to be
+rejected; and that an impartial consideration of the evidence must
+refuse the authority of Jesus to anything more than the Nazarenism of
+James and Peter and John. And let it not be supposed that this is a
+mere "infidel" perversion of the facts. No one has more openly and
+clearly admitted the possibility that they may be fairly interpreted
+in this way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, there are texts which seem
+to show that Jesus contemplated the evangelisation of the heathen:
+
+     ... Did not the Apostles hear our Lord? and what was _their_
+     impression from what they heard? Is it not certain that the
+     Apostles did not gather this truth from His teaching? (Tract
+     85, p. 63).
+
+     He said, "Preach the Gospel to every creature." These words
+     _need_ have only meant "Bring all men to Christianity
+     through Judaism." Make them Jews, that they may enjoy
+     Christ's privileges, which are lodged in Judaism; teach them
+     those rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which
+     hitherto have been dead ordinances, and now are living; and
+     so the Apostles seem to have understood them (_ibid_. p.
+     65).
+
+So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary orthodox
+Judaism, it seems to have tended towards a revival of the ethical and
+religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by the belief in
+Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which had grown round
+Judaism subsequently to the exile. To these belong the doctrines of
+the Resurrection, of the Last Judgment, of Heaven and Hell; of the
+hierarchy of good angels; of Satan and the hierarchy of evil spirits.
+And there is very strong ground for believing that all these
+doctrines, at least in the shapes in which they were held by the
+post-exilic Jews, were derived from Persian and Babylonian[97]
+sources, and are essentially of heathen origin.
+
+How far Jesus positively sanctioned all these indrainings of
+circumjacent Paganism into Judaism; how far any one has a right to
+declare, that the refusal to accept one or other of these doctrines,
+as ascertained verities, comes to the same thing as contradicting
+Jesus, it appears to me not easy to say. But it is hardly less
+difficult to conceive that he could have distinctly negatived any of
+them; and, more especially, that demonology which has been accepted by
+the Christian Churches, in every age and under all their mutual
+antagonisms. But, I repeat my conviction that, whether Jesus
+sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation or not, it is doomed.
+The future of Christianity, as a dogmatic system and apart from the
+old Israelitish ethics which it has appropriated and developed, lies
+in the answer which mankind will eventually give to the question,
+whether they are prepared to believe such stories as the Gadarene and
+the pneumatological hypotheses which go with it, or not. My belief is
+they will decline to do anything of the sort, whenever and wherever
+their minds have been disciplined by science. And that discipline
+must, and will, at once follow and lead the footsteps of advancing
+civilisation.
+
+The preceding pages were written before I became acquainted with the
+contents of the May number of the "Nineteenth Century," wherein I
+discover many things which are decidedly not to my advantage. It would
+appear that "evasion" is my chief resource, "incapacity for strict
+argument" and "rottenness of ratiocination" my main mental
+characteristics, and that it is "barely credible" that a statement
+which I profess to make of my own knowledge is true. All which things
+I notice, merely to illustrate the great truth, forced on me by long
+experience, that it is only from those who enjoy the blessing of a
+firm hold of the Christian faith that such manifestations of meekness,
+patience, and charity are to be expected.
+
+I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers, could
+entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main issue, as
+it has been stated and restated by my opponent:
+
+     an Agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to
+     God must not only refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted
+     teaching, but must deny the reality of the spiritual
+     convictions in which He lived.[98]
+
+That is said to be "the simple question which is at issue between us,"
+and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convictions
+selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Story
+of the Passion.
+
+My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been: In the first
+place, the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings and
+the convictions of Jesus is extremely uncertain; so that what
+ecclesiastics are pleased to call a denial of them may be nothing of
+the kind. And, in the second place, if Jesus taught the demonological
+system involved in the Gadarene story--if a belief in that system
+formed a part of the spiritual convictions in which he lived and
+died--then I, for my part, unhesitatingly refuse belief in that
+teaching, and deny the reality of those spiritual convictions. And I
+go further and add, that, exactly in so far as it can be proved that
+Jesus sanctioned the essentially pagan demonological theories current
+among the Jews of his age, exactly in so far, for me, will his
+authority in any matter touching the spiritual world be weakened.
+
+With respect to the first half of my answer, I have pointed out that
+the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first Gospel, is, in the
+opinion of the best critics, a "mosaic work" of materials derived from
+different sources, and I do not understand that this statement is
+challenged. The only other Gospel--the third--which contains something
+like it, makes, not only the discourse, but the circumstances under
+which it was delivered, very different. Now, it is one thing to say
+that there was something real at the bottom of the two discourses--which
+is quite possible; and another to affirm that we have any right to
+say what that something was, or to fix upon any particular phrase and
+declare it to be a genuine utterance. Those who pursue theology as a
+science, and bring to the study an adequate knowledge of the ways of
+ancient historians, will find no difficulty in providing illustrations
+of my meaning. I may supply one which has come within range of my own
+limited vision.
+
+In Josephus's "History of the Wars of the Jews" (chap, xix.), that
+writer reports a speech which he says Herod made at the opening of a
+war with the Arabians. It is in the first person, and would naturally
+be supposed by the reader to be intended for a true version of what
+Herod said. In the "Antiquities," written some seventeen years later,
+the same writer gives another report, also in the first person, of
+Herod's speech on the same occasion. This second oration is twice as
+long as the first and, though the general tenor of the two speeches is
+pretty much the same, there is hardly any verbal identity, and a good
+deal of matter is introduced into the one, which is absent from the
+other. Josephus prides himself on his accuracy; people whose fathers
+might have heard Herod's oration were his contemporaries; and yet his
+historical sense is so curiously undeveloped that he can, quite
+innocently, perpetrate an obvious literary fabrication; for one of the
+two accounts must be incorrect. Now, if I am asked whether I believe
+that Herod made some particular statement on this occasion; whether,
+for example, he uttered the pious aphorism, "Where God is, there is
+both multitude and courage," which is given in the "Antiquities," but
+not in the "Wars," I am compelled to say I do not know. One of the two
+reports must be erroneous, possibly both are: at any rate, I cannot
+tell how much of either is true. And, if some fervent admirer of the
+Idumean should build up a theory of Herod's piety upon Josephus's
+evidence that he propounded the aphorism, it is a "mere evasion" to
+say, in reply, that the evidence that he did utter it is worthless?
+
+It appears again that, adopting the tactics of Conachar when brought
+face to face with Hal o' the Wynd, I have been trying to get my
+simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose chase through the
+early history of Christianity, in the hope of escaping impending
+defeat on the main issue. But I may be permitted to point out that
+there is an alternative hypothesis which equally fits the facts; and
+that, after all, there may have been method in the madness of my
+supposed panic.
+
+For suppose it to be established that Gentile Christianity was a
+totally different thing from the Nazarenism of Jesus and his immediate
+disciples; suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as the sixth
+decade of our era at least, there were violent divergencies of opinion
+among the followers of Jesus; suppose it to be hardly doubtful that
+the Gospels and the Acts took their present shapes under the influence
+of those divergencies; suppose that their authors, and those through
+whose hands they passed, had notions of historical veracity not more
+eccentric than those which Josephus occasionally displays: surely the
+chances that the Gospels are altogether trustworthy records of the
+teachings of Jesus become very slender. And, since the whole of the
+case of the other side is based on the supposition that they are
+accurate records (especially of speeches, about which ancient
+historians are so curiously loose), I really do venture to submit that
+this part of my argument bears very seriously on the main issue; and,
+as ratiocination, is sound to the core.
+
+Again, when I passed by the topic of the speeches of Jesus on the
+Cross, it appears that I could have had no other motive than the
+dictates of my native evasiveness. An ecclesiastical dignitary may
+have respectable reasons for declining a fencing match "in sight of
+Gethsemane and Calvary"; but an ecclesiastical "Infidel"! Never. It is
+obviously impossible that in the belief that "the greater includes the
+less," I, having declared the Gospel evidence in general, as to the
+sayings of Jesus, to be of questionable value, thought it needless to
+select for illustration of my views, those particular instances which
+were likely to be most offensive to persons of another way of
+thinking. But any supposition that may have been entertained that the
+old familiar tones of the ecclesiastical war-drum will tempt me to
+engage in such needless discussion had better be renounced. I shall do
+nothing of the kind. Let it suffice that I ask my readers to turn to
+the twenty-third chapter of Luke (revised version), verse thirty-four,
+and he will find in the margin
+
+     Some ancient authorities omit: And Jesus said "Father,
+     forgive them, for they know not what they do."
+
+So that, even as late as the fourth century, there were ancient
+authorities, indeed some of the most ancient and weightiest, who
+either did not know of this utterance, so often quoted as
+characteristic of Jesus, or did not believe it had been uttered.
+
+Many years ago, I received an anonymous letter, which abused me
+heartily for my want of moral courage in not speaking out. I thought
+that one of the oddest charges an anonymous letter-writer could bring.
+But I am not sure that the plentiful sowing of the pages of the
+article with which I am dealing with accusations of evasion, may not
+seem odder to those who consider that the main strength of the answers
+with which I have been favoured (in this review and elsewhere) is
+devoted not to anything in the text of my first paper, but to a note
+which occurs at p. 212. In this I say:
+
+     Dr. Wace tells us: "It may be asked how far we can rely on
+     the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on these
+     subjects." And he seems to think the question appropriately
+     answered by the assertion that it "ought to be regarded as
+     settled by M. Renan's practical surrender of the adverse
+     case."
+
+I requested Dr. Wace to point out the passages of M. Renan's works in
+which, as he affirms, this "practical surrender" (not merely as to the
+age and authorship of the Gospels, be it observed, but as to their
+historical value) is made, and he has been so good as to do so. Now
+let us consider the parts of Dr. Wace's citation from Renan which are
+relevant to the issue:--
+
+     The author of this Gospel [Luke] is certainly the same as
+     the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now the author of
+     the Acts seems to be a companion of St. Paul--a character
+     which accords completely with St. Luke. I know that more
+     than one objection may be opposed to this reasoning: but one
+     thing, at all events, is beyond doubt, namely, that the
+     author of the third Gospel and of the Acts is a man who
+     belonged to the second apostolic generation; and this
+     suffices for our purpose.
+
+This is a curious "practical surrender of the adverse case." M. Renan
+thinks that there is no doubt that the author of the third Gospel is
+the author of the Acts--a conclusion in which I suppose critics
+generally agree. He goes on to remark that this person _seems_ to be a
+companion of St. Paul, and adds that Luke was a companion of St. Paul.
+Then, somewhat needlessly, M. Renan points out that there is more than
+one objection to jumping, from such data as these, to the conclusion
+that "Luke" is the writer of the third Gospel. And, finally, M. Renan
+is content to reduce that which is "beyond doubt" to the fact that the
+author of the two books is a man of the second apostolic generation.
+Well, it seems to me that I could agree with all that M. Renan
+considers "beyond doubt" here, without surrendering anything, either
+"practically" or theoretically.
+
+Dr. Wace ("Nineteenth Century," March, p. 363) states that he derives
+the above citation from the preface to the 15th edition of the "Vie de
+J�sus." My copy of "Les �vangiles," dated 1877, contains a list of
+Renan's "Oeuvres Compl�tes," at the head of which I find "Vie de
+J�sus," 15^e �dition. It is, therefore, a later work than the edition
+of the "Vie de J�sus" which Dr. Wace quotes. Now "Les �vangiles," as
+its name implies, treats fully of the questions respecting the date
+and authorship of the Gospels; and any one who desired, not merely to
+use M. Renan's expressions for controversial purposes, but to give a
+fair account of his views in their full significance, would, I think,
+refer to the later source.
+
+If this course had been taken, Dr. Wace might have found some as
+decided expressions of opinion, in favour of Luke's authorship of the
+third Gospel, as he has discovered in "The Apostles." I mention this
+circumstance, because I desire to point out that, taking even the
+strongest of Renan's statements, I am still at a loss to see how it
+justifies that large-sounding phrase, "practical surrender of the
+adverse case." For, on p. 438 of "Les �vangiles," Renan speaks of the
+way in which Luke's "excellent intentions" have led him to torture
+history in the Acts; he declares Luke to be the founder of that
+"eternal fiction which is called ecclesiastical history"; and, on the
+preceding page, he talks of the "myth" of the Ascension--with its
+"_mise en sc�ne voulue_." At p. 435, I find "Luc, ou l'auteur quel
+qu'il soit du troisi�me �vangile"; at p. 280, the accounts of the
+Passion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, are said to be "peu
+historiques"; at p. 283, "La valeur historique du troisi�me �vangile
+est s�rement moindre que celles des deux premiers." A Pyrrhic sort of
+victory for orthodoxy, this "surrender"! And, all the while, the
+scientific student of theology knows that, the more reason there may
+be to believe that Luke was the companion of Paul, the more doubtful
+becomes his credibility if he really wrote the Acts. For, in that
+case, he could not fail to have been acquainted with Paul's account of
+the Jerusalem conference and he must have consciously misrepresented
+it.
+
+We may next turn to the essential part of Dr. Wace's citation
+("Nineteenth Century," p. 365) touching the first Gospel:--
+
+     St. Matthew evidently deserves peculiar confidence for the
+     discourses. Here are the "oracles"--the very notes taken
+     while the memory of the instruction of Jesus was living and
+     definite.
+
+M. Renan here expresses the very general opinion as to the existence
+of a collection of "logia," having a different origin from the text in
+which they are embedded, in Matthew. "Notes" are somewhat suggestive
+of a shorthand writer, but the suggestion is unintentional, for M.
+Renan assumes that these "notes" were taken, not at the time of the
+delivery of the "logia" but subsequently, while (as he assumes) the
+memory of them was living and definite; so that, in this very
+citation, M. Renan leaves open the question of the general historical
+value of the first Gospel; while it is obvious that the accuracy of
+"Notes" taken, not at the time of delivery, but from memory, is a
+matter about which more than one opinion may be fairly held. Moreover,
+Renan expressly calls attention to the difficulty of distinguishing
+the authentic "logia" from later additions of the same kind ("Les
+�vangiles," p. 201). The fact is, there is no contradiction here to
+that opinion about the first Gospel which is expressed in "Les
+�vangiles" (p. 175).
+
+     The text of the so-called Matthew supposes the pre-existence
+     of that of Mark, and does little more than complete it. He
+     completes it in two fashions--first, by the insertion of
+     those long discourses which gave their chief value to the
+     Hebrew Gospels; then by adding traditions of a more modern
+     formation, results of successive developments of the legend,
+     and to which the Christian consciousness already attached
+     infinite value.
+
+M. Renan goes on to suggest that besides "Mark," "pseudo-Matthew"
+used an Aramaic version of the Gospel, originally set forth in that
+dialect. Finally, as to the second Gospel ("Nineteenth Century," p.
+365):--
+
+     He [Mark] is full of minute observations, proceeding, beyond
+     doubt, from an eye-witness. There is nothing to conflict
+     with the supposition that this eye-witness ... was the
+     Apostle Peter himself, as Papias has it.
+
+Let us consider this citation by the light of "Les �vangiles":--
+
+     This work, although composed after the death of Peter, was,
+     in a sense, the work of Peter; it represents the way in
+     which Peter was accustomed to relate the life of Jesus (p.
+     116).
+
+M. Renan goes on to say that, as an historical document, the Gospel of
+Mark has a great superiority (p. 116); but Mark has a motive for
+omitting the discourses, and he attaches a "puerile importance" to
+miracles (p. 117). The Gospel of Mark is less a legend, than a
+biography written with credulity (p. 118). It would be rash to say
+that Mark has not been interpolated and retouched (p. 120).
+
+If any one thinks that I have not been warranted in drawing a sharp
+distinction between "scientific theologians" and "counsels for
+creeds"; or that my warning against the too ready acceptance of
+certain declarations as to the state of biblical criticism was
+needless; or that my anxiety as to the sense of the word "practical"
+was superfluous; let him compare the statement that M. Renan has made
+a "practical surrender of the adverse case" with the facts just set
+forth. For what is the adverse case? The question, as Dr. Wace puts
+it, is, "It may be asked how far can we rely on the accounts we
+possess of our Lord's teaching on these subjects." It will be obvious
+that M. Renan's statements amount to an adverse answer--to a
+"practical" denial that any great reliance can be placed on these
+accounts. He does not believe that Matthew, the apostle, wrote the
+first Gospel; he does not profess to know who is responsible for the
+collection of "logia," or how many of them are authentic; though he
+calls the second Gospel the most historical, he points out that it is
+written with credulity, and may have been interpolated and retouched;
+and, as to the author, "quel qu'il soit," of the third Gospel, who is
+to "rely on the accounts" of a writer, who deserves the cavalier
+treatment which "Luke" meets with at M. Renan's hands.
+
+I repeat what I have already more than once said, that the question of
+the age and the authorship of the Gospels has not, in my judgment, the
+importance which is so commonly assigned to it; for the simple reason
+that the reports, even of eye-witnesses, would not suffice to justify
+belief in a large and essential part of their contents; on the
+contrary, these reports would discredit the witnesses. The Gadarene
+miracle, for example, is so extremely improbable, that the fact of its
+being reported by three, even independent, authorities could not
+justify belief in it, unless we had the clearest evidence as to their
+capacity as observers and as interpreters of their observations. But
+it is evident that the three authorities are not independent; that
+they have simply adopted a legend, of which there were two versions;
+and instead of their proving its truth, it suggests their
+superstitious credulity: so that if "Matthew," "Mark," and "Luke" are
+really responsible for the Gospels, it is not the better for the
+Gadarene story, but the worse for them.
+
+A wonderful amount of controversial capital has been made out of my
+assertion in the note to which I have referred, as an _obiter dictum_
+of no consequence to my argument, that if Renan's work[99] were
+non-extant, the main results of biblical criticism, as set forth in
+the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not
+be sensibly affected. I thought I had explained it satisfactorily
+already, but it seems that my explanation has only exhibited still
+more of my native perversity, so I ask for one more chance.
+
+In the course of the historical development of any branch of science,
+what is universally observed is this: that the men who make epochs,
+and are the real architects of the fabric of exact knowledge, are
+those who introduce fruitful ideas or methods. As a rule, the man who
+does this pushes his idea, or his method, too far; or, if he does not,
+his school is sure to do so; and those who follow have to reduce his
+work to its proper value, and assign it its place in the whole. Not
+unfrequently, they, in their turn, overdo the critical process, and,
+in trying to eliminate error, throw away truth.
+
+Thus, as I said, Linn�us, Buffon, Cuvier, Lamarck, really "set forth
+the results" of a developing science, although they often heartily
+contradict one another. Notwithstanding this circumstance, modern
+classificatory method and nomenclature have largely grown out of the
+work of Linn�us; the modern conception of biology, as a science, and
+of its relation to climatology, geography, and geology, are, as
+largely, rooted in the results of the labours of Buffon; comparative
+anatomy and pal�ontology owe a vast debt to Cuvier's results; while
+invertebrate zoology and the revival of the idea of evolution are
+intimately dependent on the results of the work of Lamarck. In other
+words, the main results of biology up to the early years of this
+century are to be found in, or spring out of, the works of these men.
+
+So, if I mistake not, Strauss, if he did not originate the idea of
+taking the mythopoeic faculty into account in the development of the
+Gospel narratives, and though he may have exaggerated the influence of
+that faculty, obliged scientific theology, hereafter, to take that
+element into serious consideration; so Baur, in giving prominence to
+the cardinal fact of the divergence of the Nazarene and Pauline
+tendencies in the primitive Church; so Reuss, in setting a marvellous
+example of the cool and dispassionate application of the principles of
+scientific criticism over the whole field of Scripture; so Volkmar, in
+his clear and forcible statement of the Nazarene limitations of Jesus,
+contributed results of permanent value in scientific theology. I took
+these names as they occurred to me. Undoubtedly, I might have
+advantageously added to them; perhaps, I might have made a better
+selection. But it really is absurd to try to make out that I did not
+know that these writers widely disagree; and I believe that no
+scientific theologian will deny that, in principle, what I have said
+is perfectly correct. Ecclesiastical advocates, of course, cannot be
+expected to take this view of the matter. To them, these mere seekers
+after truth, in so far as their results are unfavourable to the creed
+the clerics have to support, are more or less "infidels," or favourers
+of "infidelity"; and the only thing they care to see, or probably can
+see, is the fact that, in a great many matters, the truth-seekers
+differ from one another, and therefore can easily be exhibited to the
+public, as if they did nothing else; as if any one who referred to
+their having, each and all, contributed his share to the results of
+theological science, was merely showing his ignorance; and as if a
+charge of inconsistency could be based on the fact that he himself
+often disagrees with what they say. I have never lent a shadow of
+foundation to the assumption that I am a follower of either Strauss,
+or Baur, or Reuss, or Volkmar, or Renan; my debts to these eminent
+men--so far my superiors in theological knowledge--is, indeed, great;
+yet it is not for their opinions, but for those I have been able to
+form for myself, by their help.
+
+In _Agnosticism: a Rejoinder_ (p. 266), I have referred to the
+difficulties under which those professors of the science of theology,
+whose tenure of their posts depends on the results of their
+investigations, must labour; and, in a note, I add--
+
+     Imagine that all our chairs of Astronomy had been founded in
+     the fourteenth century, and that their incumbents were bound
+     to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with every respect
+     for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and
+     expound the truth, I think men of common sense would go
+     elsewhere to learn astronomy.
+
+I did not write this paragraph without a knowledge that its sense
+would be open to the kind of perversion which it has suffered; but, if
+that was clear, the necessity for the statement was still clearer. It
+is my deliberate opinion: I reiterate it; and I say that, in my
+judgment, it is extremely inexpedient that any subject which calls
+itself a science should be intrusted to teachers who are debarred from
+freely following out scientific methods to their legitimate
+conclusions, whatever those conclusions may be. If I may borrow a
+phrase paraded at the Church Congress, I think it "ought to be
+unpleasant" for any man of science to find himself in the position of
+such a teacher.
+
+Human nature is not altered by seating it in a professorial chair,
+even of theology. I have very little doubt that if, in the year 1859,
+the tenure of my office had depended upon my adherence to the
+doctrines of Cuvier, the objections to them set forth in the "Origin
+of Species" would have had a halo of gravity about them that, being
+free to teach what I pleased, I failed to discover. And, in making
+that statement, it does not appear to me that I am confessing that I
+should have been debarred by "selfish interests" from making candid
+inquiry, or that I should have been biassed by "sordid motives." I
+hope that even such a fragment of moral sense as may remain in an
+ecclesiastical "infidel" might have got me through the difficulty; but
+it would be unworthy to deny, or disguise, the fact that a very
+serious difficulty must have been created for me by the nature of my
+tenure. And let it be observed that the temptation, in my case, would
+have been far slighter than in that of a professor of theology;
+whatever biological doctrine I had repudiated, nobody I cared for
+would have thought the worse of me for so doing. No scientific
+journals would have howled me down, as the religious newspapers howled
+down my too honest friend, the late Bishop of Natal; nor would my
+colleagues of the Royal Society have turned their backs upon me, as
+his episcopal colleagues boycotted him.
+
+I say these facts are obvious, and that it is wholesome and needful
+that they should be stated. It is in the interests of theology, if it
+be a science, and it is in the interests of those teachers of theology
+who desire to be something better than counsel for creeds, that it
+should be taken to heart. The seeker after theological truth and that
+only, will no more suppose that I have insulted him, than the prisoner
+who works in fetters will try to pick a quarrel with me, if I suggest
+that he would get on better if the fetters were knocked off: unless
+indeed, as it is said does happen in the course of long captivities,
+that the victim at length ceases to feel the weight of his chains, or
+even takes to hugging them, as if they were honourable ornaments.[100]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [81] The substance of a paragraph which precedes this has
+          been transferred to the Prologue.
+
+     [82] I confess that, long ago, I once or twice made this
+          mistake; even to the waste of a capital 'U.' 1893.
+
+     [83] "Let us maintain, before we have proved. This seeming
+          paradox is the secret of happiness" (Dr. Newman: Tract
+          85, p. 85).
+
+     [84] Dr. Newman, _Essay on Development_, p. 357.
+
+     [85] It is by no means to be assumed that "spiritual" and
+          "corporeal" are exact equivalents of "immaterial" and
+          "material" in the minds of ancient speculators on
+          these topics. The "spiritual body" of the risen dead
+          (1 Cor. xv.) is not the "natural" "flesh and blood"
+          body. Paul does not teach the resurrection of the body
+          in the ordinary sense of the word "body"; a fact,
+          often overlooked, but pregnant with many consequences.
+
+     [86] Tertullian (_Apolog. Adv. Gentes_, cap. xxiii) thus
+          challenges the Roman authorities: let them bring a
+          possessed person into the presence of a Christian
+          before their tribunal, and if the demon does not
+          confess himself to be such, on the order of the
+          Christian, let the Christian be executed out of hand.
+
+     [87] See the expression of orthodox opinion upon the
+          "accommodation" subterfuge already cited above, p. 217.
+
+     [88] I quote the first edition (1843). A second edition
+          appeared in 1870. Tract 85 of the _Tracts for the
+          Times_ should be read with this _Essay_. If I were
+          called upon to compile a Primer of "Infidelity," I
+          think I should save myself trouble by making a
+          selection from these works, and from the _Essay on
+          Development_ by the same author.
+
+     [89] Yet, when it suits his purpose, as in the Introduction
+          to the _Essay on Development_, Dr. Newman can demand
+          strict evidence in religious questions as sharply as
+          any "infidel author;" and he can even profess to yield
+          to its force (_Essay on Miracles_, 1870; note, p. 391).
+
+     [90] Compare Tract 85, p. 110; "I am persuaded that were men
+          but consistent who oppose the Church doctrines as being
+          unscriptural, they would vindicate the Jews for
+          rejecting the Gospel."
+
+     [91] According to Dr. Newman, "This prayer [that of Bishop
+          Alexander, who begged God to 'take Arius away'] is said
+          to have been offered about 3 P.M. on the Saturday; that
+          same evening Arius was in the great square of
+          Constantine, when he was suddenly seized with
+          indisposition" (p. clxx). The "infidel" Gibbon seems to
+          have dared to suggest that "an option between poison
+          and miracle" is presented by this case; and it must be
+          admitted, that, if the Bishop had been within the reach
+          of a modern police magistrate, things might have gone
+          hardly with him. Modern "Infidels," possessed of a
+          slight knowledge of chemistry, are not unlikely, with
+          no less audacity, to suggest an "option between
+          fire-damp and miracle" in seeking for the cause of the
+          fiery outburst at Jerusalem.
+
+     [92] A writer in a spiritualist journal takes me roundly
+          to task for venturing to doubt the historical and
+          literal truth of the Gadarene story. The following
+          passage in his letter is worth quotation: "Now to the
+          materialistic and scientific mind, to the uninitiated
+          in spiritual verities, certainly this story of the
+          Gadarene or Gergesene swine presents insurmountable
+          difficulties; it seems grotesque and nonsensical. To
+          the experienced, trained, and cultivated Spiritualist
+          this miracle is, as I am prepared to show, one of the
+          most instructive, the most profoundly useful, and the
+          most beneficent which Jesus ever wrought in the whole
+          course of His pilgrimage of redemption on earth." Just
+          so. And the first page of this same journal presents
+          the following advertisement, among others of the same
+          kidney:
+
+          "To WEALTHY SPIRITUALISTS--A Lady Medium of tried power
+          wishes to meet with an elderly gentleman who would be
+          willing to give her a comfortable home and maintenance
+          in Exchange for her Spiritualistic services, as her
+          guides consider her health is too delicate for public
+          sittings: London preferred.--Address 'Mary,' Office of
+          _Light_."
+
+          Are we going back to the days of the Judges, when
+          wealthy Micah set up his private ephod, teraphim, and
+          Levite?
+
+     [93] Consider Tertullian's "sister" ("hodie apud nos"),
+          who conversed with angels, saw and heard mysteries,
+          knew men's thoughts, and prescribed medicine for their
+          bodies (_De Anima_, cap. 9). Tertullian tells us that
+          this woman saw the soul as corporeal, and described its
+          colour and shape. The "infidel" will probably be unable
+          to refrain from insulting the memory of the ecstatic
+          saint by the remark, that Tertullian's known views
+          about the corporeality of the soul may have had
+          something to do with the remarkable perceptive powers
+          of the Montanist medium, in whose revelations of the
+          spiritual world he took such profound interest.
+
+     [94] See the New York _World_ for Sunday, 21st October,
+          1888; and the _Report of the Seybert Commission_,
+          Philadelphia, 1887.
+
+     [95] Dr. Newman's observation that the miraculous
+          multiplication of the pieces of the true cross (with
+          which "the whole world is filled," according to Cyril
+          of Jerusalem; and of which some say there are enough
+          extant to build a man-of-war) is no more wonderful
+          than that of the loaves and fishes, is one that I do
+          not see my way to contradict. See _Essay on Miracles_.
+          2d ed. p. 163.
+
+     [96] _An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_,
+          by J.H. Newman, D.D., pp. 7 and 8. (1878.)
+
+     [97] Dr. Newman faces this question with his customary
+          ability. "Now, I own, I am not at all solicitous to
+          deny that this doctrine of an apostate Angel and his
+          hosts was gained from Babylon: it might still be
+          Divine nevertheless. God who made the prophet's ass
+          speak, and thereby instructed the prophet, might
+          instruct His Church by means of heathen Babylon"
+          (Tract 85, p. 83). There seems to be no end to the
+          apologetic burden that Balaam's ass may carry.
+
+     [98] _Nineteenth Century_, May 1889 (p. 701).
+
+     [99] I trust it may not be supposed that I undervalue M.
+          Renan's labours, or intended to speak slightingly of
+          them.
+
+    [100] To-day's _Times_ contains a report of a remarkable
+          speech by Prince Bismarck, in which he tells the
+          Reichstag that he has long given up investing in
+          foreign stock, lest so doing should mislead his
+          judgment in his transactions with foreign states. Does
+          this declaration prove that the Chancellor accuses
+          himself of being "sordid" and "selfish"; or does it not
+          rather show that, even in dealing with himself, he
+          remains the man of realities?
+
+
+
+
+X: THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE
+
+[1890]
+
+
+I had fondly hoped that Mr. Gladstone and I had come to an end of
+disputation, and that the hatchet of war was finally superseded by the
+calumet, which, as Mr. Gladstone, I believe, objects to tobacco, I was
+quite willing to smoke for both. But I have had, once again, to
+discover that the adage that whoso seeks peace will ensue it, is a
+somewhat hasty generalisation. The renowned warrior with whom it is my
+misfortune to be opposed in most things has dug up the axe and is on
+the war-path once more. The weapon has been wielded with all the
+dexterity which long practice has conferred on a past master in craft,
+whether of wood or state. And I have reason to believe that the
+simpler sort of the great tribe which he heads, imagine that my scalp
+is already on its way to adorn their big chief's wigwam. I am glad
+therefore to be able to relieve any anxieties which my friends may
+entertain without delay. I assure them that my skull retains its
+normal covering, and that though, naturally, I may have felt alarmed,
+nothing serious has happened. My doughty adversary has merely
+performed a war dance, and his blows have for the most part cut the
+air. I regret to add, however, that by misadventure, and I am afraid I
+must say carelessness, he has inflicted one or two severe contusions
+on himself.
+
+When the noise of approaching battle roused me from the dreams of
+peace which occupy my retirement, I was glad to observe (since I must
+fight) that the campaign was to be opened upon a new field. When the
+contest raged over the Pentateuchal myth of the creation, Mr.
+Gladstone's manifest want of acquaintance with the facts and
+principles involved in the discussion, no less than with the best
+literature on his own side of the subject, gave me the uncomfortable
+feeling that I had my adversary at a disadvantage. The sun of science,
+at my back, was in his eyes. But, on the present occasion, we are
+happily on an equality. History and Biblical criticism are as much, or
+as little, my vocation as they are that of Mr. Gladstone; the blinding
+from too much light, or the blindness from too little, may be presumed
+to be equally shared by both of us.
+
+Mr. Gladstone takes up his new position in the country of the
+Gadarenes. His strategic sense justly leads him to see that the
+authority of the teachings of the synoptic Gospels, touching the
+nature of the spiritual world, turns upon the acceptance, or the
+rejection, of the Gadarene and other like stories. As we accept, or
+repudiate, such histories as that of the possessed pigs, so shall we
+accept, or reject, the witness of the synoptics to such miraculous
+interventions.
+
+It is exactly because these stories constitute the key-stone of the
+orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite
+of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for
+compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be
+thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware
+that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated
+as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in
+their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully set forth in that
+work. But the warmest admirers of Mr. Gladstone will hardly be
+prepared to maintain that mathematical accuracy in stating the
+opinions of an opponent is the most prominent feature of his
+controversial method. And what follows will show that, in the present
+case, the desire to be fair and accurate, the existence of which I am
+bound to assume, has not borne as much fruit as might have been
+expected.
+
+In referring to the statement of the narrators, that the herd of
+swine perished in consequence of the entrance into them of the demons
+by the permission, or order, of Jesus of Nazareth, I said:
+
+"Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the
+wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
+evil example" ("Nineteenth Century," February, 1889, p. 172).
+
+Mr. Gladstone has not found it convenient to cite this passage; and,
+in view of various considerations, I dare not assume that he would
+assent to it, without sundry subtle modifications which, for me, might
+possibly rob it of its argumentative value. But, until the proposition
+is seriously controverted, I shall assume it to be true, and content
+myself with warning the reader that neither he nor I have any grounds
+for assuming Mr. Gladstone's concurrence. With this caution, I proceed
+to remark that I think it may be granted that the people whose herd of
+2000 swine (more or fewer) was suddenly destroyed suffered great loss
+and damage. And it is quite certain that the narrators of the Gadarene
+story do not, in any way, refer to the point of morality and legality
+thus raised; as I said, they show no inkling of the moral and legal
+difficulties which arise.
+
+Such being the facts of the case, I submit that for those who admit
+the principle laid down, the conclusion which I have drawn necessarily
+follows; though I repeat that, since Mr. Gladstone does not
+explicitly admit the principle, I am far from suggesting that he is
+bound by its logical consequences. However, I distinctly reiterate the
+opinion that any one who acted in the way described in the story
+would, in my judgment, be guilty of "a misdemeanour of evil example."
+About that point I desire to leave no ambiguity whatever; and it
+follows that, if I believed the story, I should have no hesitation in
+applying this judgment to the chief actor in it.
+
+But, if any one will do me the favour to turn to the paper in which
+these passages occur, he will find that a considerable part of it is
+devoted to the exposure of the familiar trick of the "counsel for
+creeds," who, when they wish to profit by the easily stirred _odium
+theologicum_, are careful to confuse disbelief in a narrative of a
+man's act, or disapproval of the acts as narrated, with disbelieving
+and vilipending the man himself. If I say that "according to
+paragraphs in several newspapers, my valued Separatist friend A.B. has
+houghed a lot of cattle, which he considered to be unlawfully in the
+possession of an Irish land-grabber; that, in my opinion, any such act
+is a misdemeanour of evil example; but, that I utterly disbelieve the
+whole story and have no doubt that it is a mere fabrication:" it
+really appears to me that, if any one charges me with calling A.B. an
+immoral misdemeanant I should be justified in using very strong
+language respecting either his sanity or his veracity. And, if an
+analogous charge has been brought in reference to the Gadarene story,
+there is certainly no excuse producible, on account of any lack of
+plain speech on my part. Surely no language can be more explicit than
+that which follows:
+
+"I can discern no escape from this dilemma; either Jesus said what he
+is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former case, it is
+inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the 'unseen
+world' should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon
+the authority of the synoptic Gospels" (p. 173). "The choice then lies
+between discrediting those who compiled the Gospel biographies and
+disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple souls, thought to honour by
+preserving such traditions of the exercise of his authority over
+Satan's invisible world" (p. 174). And I leave no shadow of doubt as
+to my own choice: "After what has been said, I do not think that any
+sensible man, unless he happen to be angry, will accuse me of
+'contradicting the Lord and his Apostles' if I reiterate my total
+disbelief in the whole Gadarene story" (p. 178).
+
+I am afraid, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone must have been exceedingly
+angry when he committed himself to such a statement as follows:
+
+     So, then, after eighteen centuries of worship offered to our
+     Lord by the most cultivated, the most developed, and the
+     most progressive portion of the human race, it has been
+     reserved to a scientific inquirer to discover that He was no
+     better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer.... How, in such
+     a matter, came the honours of originality to be reserved to
+     our time and to Professor Huxley? (Pp. 269, 270.)
+
+Truly, the hatchet is hardly a weapon of precision, but would seem to
+have rather more the character of the boomerang, which returns to
+damage the reckless thrower. Doubtless such incidents are somewhat
+ludicrous. But they have a very serious side; and, if I rated the
+opinion of those who blindly follow Mr. Gladstone's leading, but not
+light, in these matters, much higher than the great Duke of
+Wellington's famous standard of minimum value, I think I might fairly
+beg them to reflect upon the general bearings of this particular
+example of his controversial method. I imagine it can hardly commend
+itself to their cool judgment.
+
+After this tragi-comical ending to what an old historian calls a
+"robustious and rough coming on"; and after some praises of the
+provisions of the Mosaic law in the matter of not eating pork--in
+which, as pork disagrees with me and for some other reasons, I am much
+disposed to concur, though I do not see what they have to do with the
+matter in hand--comes the serious onslaught.
+
+     Mr. Huxley, exercising his rapid judgment on the text, does
+     not appear to have encumbered himself with the labour of
+     inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it. He
+     has thus missed a point which might have been set up in
+     support of his accusation against our Lord. (P. 273.)
+
+Unhappily for my conduct, I have been much exercised in controversy
+during the past thirty years; and the only compensation for the loss
+of time and the trials of temper which it has inflicted upon me, is
+that I have come to regard it as a branch of the fine arts, and to
+take an impartial and �sthetic interest in the way in which it is
+conducted, even by those whose efforts are directed against myself.
+Now, from the purely artistic point of view (which, as we are all
+being told, has nothing to do with morals), I consider it an axiom,
+that one should never appear to doubt that the other side has
+performed the elementary duty of acquiring proper elementary
+information, unless there is demonstrative evidence to the contrary.
+And I think, though I admit that this may be a purely subjective
+appreciation, that (unless you are quite certain) there is a "want of
+finish," as a great master of disputation once put it, about the
+suggestion that your opponent has missed a point on his own side.
+Because it may happen that he has not missed it at all, but only
+thought it unworthy of serious notice. And if he proves that, the
+suggestion looks foolish.
+
+Merely noting the careful repetition of a charge, the absurdity of
+which has been sufficiently exposed above, I now ask my readers to
+accompany me on a little voyage of discovery in search of the side on
+which the rapid judgment and the ignorance of the literature of the
+subject lie. I think I may promise them very little trouble, and a
+good deal of entertainment.
+
+Mr. Gladstone is of opinion that the Gadarene swinefolk were "Hebrews
+bound by the Mosaic law" (p. 274); and he conceives that it has not
+occurred to me to learn what may be said in favour of and against this
+view. He tells us that
+
+     Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for
+     stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of
+     Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine
+     was innocent and lawful. (P. 273.)
+
+Mr. Gladstone then goes on to inform his readers that in his
+painstaking search after truth he has submitted to the labour of
+personally examining the writings of Josephus. Moreover, in a note, he
+positively exhibits an acquaintance, in addition, with the works of
+Bishop Wordsworth and of Archbishop Trench; and even shows that he has
+read Hudson's commentary on Josephus. And yet people say that our
+Biblical critics do not equal the Germans in research! But Mr.
+Gladstone's citation of Cuvier and Sir John Herschel about the
+Creation myth, and his ignorance of all the best modern writings on
+his own side, produced a great impression on my mind. I have had the
+audacity to suspect that his acquaintance with what has been done in
+Biblical history might stand at no higher level than his information
+about the natural sciences. However unwillingly, I have felt bound to
+consider the possibility that Mr. Gladstone's labours in this matter
+may have carried him no further than Josephus and the worthy, but
+somewhat antique, episcopal and other authorities to whom he refers;
+that even his reading of Josephus may have been of the most cursory
+nature, directed not to the understanding of his author, but to the
+discovery of useful controversial matter; and that, in view of the not
+inconsiderable misrepresentation of my statements to which I have
+drawn attention, it might be that Mr. Gladstone's exposition of the
+evidence of Josephus was not more trustworthy. I proceed to show that
+my previsions have been fully justified. I doubt if controversial
+literature contains anything more _piquant_ than the story I have to
+unfold.
+
+That I should be reproved for rapidity of judgment is very just;
+however quaint the situation of Mr. Gladstone, as the reprover, may
+seem to people blessed with a sense of humour. But it is a quality,
+the defects of which have been painfully obvious to me all my life;
+and I try to keep my Pegasus--at best, a poor Shetland variety of that
+species of quadruped--at a respectable jog-trot, by loading him
+heavily with bales of reading. Those who took the trouble to study my
+paper in good faith and not for mere controversial purposes, have a
+right to know, that something more than a hasty glimpse of two or
+three passages of Josephus (even with as many episcopal works thrown
+in) lay at the back of the few paragraphs I devoted to the Gadarene
+story. I proceed to set forth, as briefly as I can, some results of
+that preparatory work. My artistic principles do not permit me, at
+present, to express a doubt that Mr. Gladstone was acquainted with the
+facts I am about to mention when he undertook to write. But, if he did
+know them, then both what he has said and what he has not said, his
+assertions and his omissions alike, will require a paragraph to
+themselves.
+
+The common consent of the synoptic Gospels affirms that the miraculous
+transference of devils from a man, or men, to sundry pigs, took place
+somewhere on the eastern shore of the Lake of Tiberias; "on the other
+side of the sea over against Galilee," the western shore being,
+without doubt, included in the latter province. But there is no such
+concord when we come to the name of the part of the eastern shore, on
+which, according to the story, Jesus and his disciples landed. In the
+revised version, Matthew calls it the "country of the Gadarenes:" Luke
+and Mark have "Gerasenes." In sundry very ancient manuscripts
+"Gergesenes" occurs.
+
+The existence of any place called Gergesa, however, is declared by the
+weightiest authorities whom I have consulted to be very questionable;
+and no such town is mentioned in the list of the cities of the
+Decapolis, in the territory of which (as it would seem from Mark v.
+20) the transaction was supposed to take place. About Gerasa, on the
+other hand, there hangs no such doubt. It was a large and important
+member of the group of the Decapolitan cities. But Gerasa is more than
+thirty miles distant from the nearest part of the Lake of Tiberias,
+while the city mentioned in the narrative could not have been very far
+off the scene of the event. However, as Gerasa was a very important
+Hellenic city, not much more than a score of miles from Gadara, it is
+easily imaginable that a locality which was part of Decapolitan
+territory may have been spoken of as belonging to one of the two
+cities, when it really appertained to the other. After weighing all
+the arguments, no doubt remains on my mind that "Gadarene" is the
+proper reading. At the period under consideration, Gadara appears to
+have been a good-sized fortified town, about two miles in
+circumference. It was a place of considerable strategic importance,
+inasmuch as it lay on a high ridge at the point of intersection of the
+roads from Tiberias, Scythopolis, Damascus, and Gerasa. Three miles
+north from it, where the Tiberias road descended into the valley of
+the Hieromices, lay the famous hot springs and the fashionable baths
+of Amatha. On the north-east side, the remains of the extensive
+necropolis of Gadara are still to be seen. Innumerable sepulchral
+chambers are excavated in the limestone cliffs, and many of them still
+contain sarcophaguses of basalt; while not a few are converted into
+dwellings by the inhabitants of the present village of Um Keis. The
+distance of Gadara from the south-eastern shore of the Lake of
+Tiberias is less than seven miles. The nearest of the other cities of
+the Decapolis, to the north, is Hippos, which also lay some seven
+miles off, in the south-eastern corner of the shore of the lake. In
+accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice, that each city should
+be surrounded by a certain amount of territory amenable to its
+jurisdiction,[101] and on other grounds, it may be taken for certain
+that the intermediate country was divided between Gadara and Hippos;
+and that the citizens of Gadara had free access to a port on the lake.
+Hence the title of "country of the Gadarenes" applied to the locality
+of the porcine catastrophe becomes easily intelligible. The swine may
+well be imagined to have been feeding (as they do now in the adjacent
+region) on the hillsides, which slope somewhat steeply down to the
+lake from the northern boundary wall of the valley of the Hieromices
+(_Nahr Yarmuk_), about half-way between the city and the shore, and
+doubtless lay well within the territory of the _polis_ of Gadara.
+
+The proof that Gadara was, to all intents and purposes, a Gentile, and
+not a Jewish, city is complete. The date and the occasion of its
+foundation are unknown; but it certainly existed in the third century
+B.C. Antiochus the Great annexed it to his dominions in B.C. 198.
+After this, during the brief revival of Jewish autonomy, Alexander
+Jann�us took it; and for the first time, so far as the records go, it
+fell under Jewish rule.[102] From this it was rescued by Pompey (B.C.
+63), who rebuilt the city and incorporated it with the province of
+Syria. In gratitude to the Romans for the dissolution of a hated
+union, the Gadarenes adopted the Pompeian era of their coinage. Gadara
+was a commercial centre of some importance, and therefore, it may be
+assumed, Jews settled in it, as they settled in almost all
+considerable Gentile cities. But a wholly mistaken estimate of the
+magnitude of the Jewish colony has been based upon the notion that
+Gabinius, proconsul of Syria in 57-55 B.C., seated one of the five
+sanhedrins in Gadara. Sch�rer has pointed out that what he really did
+was to lodge one of them in Gadara, far away on the other side of the
+Jordan. This is one of the many errors which have arisen out of the
+confusion of the names Ga_d_ara, Ga_z_ara, and Ga_b_ara.
+
+Augustus made a present of Gadara to Herod the Great, as an appanage
+personal to himself; and, upon Herod's death, recognising it to be a
+"Grecian city" like Hippos and Gaza,[103] he transferred it back to
+its former place in the province of Syria. That Herod made no effort
+to judaise his temporary possession, but rather the contrary, is
+obvious from the fact that the coins of Gadara, while under his rule,
+bear the image of Augustus with the superscription [Greek: Sebastos]--a
+flying in the face of Jewish prejudices which, even he, did not dare
+to venture upon in Jud�a. And I may remark that, if my co-trustee of
+the British Museum had taken the trouble to visit the splendid
+numismatic collection under our charge, he might have seen two coins
+of Gadara, one of the time of Tiberius and the other of that of Titus,
+each bearing the effigies of the emperor on the obverse: while the
+personified genius of the city is on the reverse of the former.
+Further, the well-known works of De Saulcy and of Ekhel would have
+supplied the information that, from the time of Augustus to that of
+Gordian, the Gadarene coinage had the same thoroughly Gentile
+character. Curious that a city of "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law"
+should tolerate such a mint!
+
+Whatever increase in population the Ghetto of Gadara may have
+undergone, between B.C. 4 and A.D. 66, it nowise affected the gentile
+and anti-judaic character of the city at the outbreak of the great
+war; for Josephus tells us that, immediately after the great massacre
+of C�sarea, the revolted Jews "laid waste the villages of the Syrians
+and their neighbouring cities, Philadelphia and Sebonitis and Gerasa
+and Pella and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara and Hippos" ("Wars,"
+II. xviii. 1). I submit that, if Gadara had been a city of "Hebrews
+bound by the Mosaic law," the ravaging of their territory by their
+brother Jews, in revenge for the massacre of the C�sarean Jews by the
+Gentile population of that place, would surely have been a somewhat
+unaccountable proceeding. But when we proceed a little further, to the
+fifth section of the chapter in which this statement occurs, the whole
+affair becomes intelligible enough.
+
+     Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up
+     against the Jews that were among them: those of Askelon slew
+     two thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two
+     thousand, and put not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also
+     put a great number to death, but kept a great number in
+     prison; moreover, those of Hippos and those of Gadara did
+     the like, while they put to death the boldest of the Jews,
+     but kept those of whom they were most afraid in custody; as
+     did the rest of the cities of Syria according as they every
+     one either hated them or were afraid of them.
+
+Josephus is not always trustworthy, but he has no conceivable motive
+for altering facts here; he speaks of contemporary events, in which he
+himself took an active part, and he characterises the cities in the
+way familiar to him. For Josephus, Gadara is just as much a Gentile
+city as Ptolemais; it was reserved for his latest commentator, either
+ignoring, or ignorant of, all this, to tell us that Gadara had a
+Hebrew population, bound by the Mosaic law.
+
+In the face of all this evidence, most of which has been put before
+serious students, with full reference to the needful authorities and
+in a thoroughly judicial manner, by Sch�rer in his classical
+work,[104] one reads with stupefaction the statement which Mr.
+Gladstone has thought fit to put before the uninstructed public:
+
+     Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for
+     stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of
+     Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine
+     was innocent and lawful. This is not quite the place for a
+     critical examination of the matter; but I have examined it,
+     and have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no reason
+     whatever to suppose that the population of Gadara, and still
+     less (if less may be) the population of the neighbourhood,
+     and least of all the swine-herding or lower portion of that
+     population, were other than Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law.
+     (Pp. 373-4.)
+
+Even "rapid judgment" cannot be pleaded in excuse for this surprising
+statement, because a "Note on the Gadarene miracle" is added (in a
+special appendix), in which the references are given to the passages
+of Josephus, by the improved interpretation of which, Mr. Gladstone
+has thus contrived to satisfy himself of the thing which is not. One
+of these is "Antiquities" XVII. xiii. 4, in which section, I regret to
+say, I can find no mention of Gadara. In "Antiquities," XVII. xi. 4,
+however, there is a passage which would appear to be that Mr.
+Gladstone means; and I will give it in full, although I have already
+cited part of it:
+
+     There were also certain of the cities which paid tribute to
+     Archelaus; Strato's tower, and Sebaste, with Joppa and
+     Jerusalem; for, as to Gaza, Gadara, and Hippos, they were
+     Grecian cities, which C�sar separated from his government,
+     and added them to the province of Syria.
+
+That is to say, Augustus simply restored the state of things which
+existed before he gave Gadara, then certainly a Gentile city, lying
+outside Jud�a, to Herod as a mark of great personal favour. Yet Mr.
+Gladstone can gravely tell those who are not in a position to check
+his statements:
+
+     The sense seems to be, not that these cities were inhabited
+     by a Greek population, but that they had politically been
+     taken out of Jud�a and added to Syria, which I presume was
+     classified as simply Hellenic, a portion of the great Greek
+     empire erected by Alexander. (Pp. 295-6.)
+
+Mr. Gladstone's next reference is to the "Wars," III. vii. 1:
+
+     So Vespasian marched to the city Gadara, and took it upon
+     the first onset, because he found it destitute of a
+     considerable number of men grown up for war. He then came
+     into it, and slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy
+     on any age whatsoever; and this was done out of the hatred
+     they bore the nation, and because of the iniquity they had
+     been guilty of in the affair of Cestius.
+
+Obviously, then, Gadara was an ultra-Jewish city. Q.E.D. But a student
+trained in the use of weapons of precision, rather than in that of
+rhetorical tomahawks, has had many and painful warnings to look well
+about him, before trusting an argument to the mercies of a passage,
+the context of which he has not carefully considered. If Mr. Gladstone
+had not been too much in a hurry to turn his imaginary prize to
+account--if he had paused just to look at the preceding chapter of
+Josephus--he would have discovered that his much haste meant very
+little speed. He would have found ("Wars," III. vi. 2) that Vespasian
+marched from his base, the port of Ptolemais (Acre), on the shores of
+the Mediterranean, into Galilee; and, having dealt with the so-called
+"Gadara," was minded to finish with Jotapata, a strong place about
+fourteen miles south-east of Ptolemais, into which Josephus, who at
+first had fled to Tiberias, eventually threw himself--Vespasian
+arriving before Jotapata "the very next day." Now, if any one will
+take a decent map of Ancient Palestine in hand, he will see that
+Jotapata, as I have said, lies about fourteen miles in a straight line
+east-south-east of Ptolemais, while a certain town, "Gabara" (which
+was also held by the Jews), is situated, about the same distance, to
+the east of that port. Nothing can be more obvious than that
+Vespasian, wishing to advance from Ptolemais into Galilee, could not
+afford to leave these strongholds in the possession of the enemy; and,
+as Gabara would lie on his left flank when he moved to Jotapata, he
+took that city, whence his communications with his base could easily
+be threatened, first. It might really have been fair evidence of
+demoniac possession, if the best general of Rome had marched forty odd
+miles, as the crow flies, through hostile Galilee, to take a city
+(which, moreover, had just tried to abolish its Jewish population) on
+the other side of the Jordan; and then marched back again to a place
+fourteen miles off his starting-point.[105] One would think that the
+most careless of readers must be startled by this incongruity into
+inquiring whether there might not be something wrong with the text;
+and, if he had done so, he would have easily discovered that since the
+time of Reland, a century and a half ago, careful scholars have read
+Ga_b_ara for Ga_d_ara.[106]
+
+Once more, I venture to point out that training in the use of the
+weapons of precision of science may have its value in historical
+studies, if only in preventing the occurrence of droll blunders in
+geography.
+
+In the third citation ("Wars," IV. vii.) Josephus tells us that
+Vespasian marched against "Gadara," which he calls the metropolis of
+Per�a (it was possibly the seat of a common festival of the
+Decapolitan cities), and entered it, without opposition, the wealthy
+and powerful citizens having opened negotiations with him without the
+knowledge of an opposite party, who, "as being inferior in number to
+their enemies, who were within the city, and seeing the Romans very
+near the city," resolved to fly. Before doing so, however, they, after
+a fashion unfortunately too common among the Zealots, murdered and
+shockingly mutilated Dolesus, a man of the first rank, who had
+promoted the embassy to Vespasian; and then "ran out of the city."
+Hereupon, "the people of Gadara" (surely not this time "Hebrews bound
+by the Mosaic law") received Vespasian with joyful acclamations,
+voluntarily pulled down their wall, so that the city could not in
+future be used as a fortress by the Jews, and accepted a Roman
+garrison for their future protection. Granting that this Gadara really
+is the city of the Gadarenes, the reference, without citation, to the
+passage, in support of Mr. Gladstone's contention seems rather
+remarkable. Taken in conjunction with the shortly antecedent ravaging
+of the Gadarene territory by the Jews, in fact, better proof could
+hardly be expected of the real state of the case; namely, that the
+population of Gadara (and notably the wealthy and respectable part of
+it) was thoroughly Hellenic; though, as in C�sarea and elsewhere among
+the Palestinian cities, the rabble contained a considerable body of
+fanatical Jews, whose reckless ferocity made them, even though a mere
+minority of the population, a standing danger to the city.
+
+Thus Mr. Gladstone's conclusion from his study of Josephus, that the
+population of Gadara were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law," turns out
+to depend upon nothing better than the marvellously complete
+misinterpretation of what that author says, combined with equally
+marvellous geographical misunderstandings, long since exposed and
+rectified; while the positive evidence that Gadara, like other cities
+of the Decapolis, was thoroughly Hellenic in organisation, and
+essentially Gentile in population, is overwhelming.
+
+And, that being the fact of the matter, patent to all who will take
+the trouble to enquire about what has been said about it, however
+obscure to those who merely talk of so doing, the thesis that the
+Gadarene swineherds, or owners, were Jews violating the Mosaic law
+shows itself to be an empty and most unfortunate guess. But really,
+whether they that kept the swine were Jews, or whether they were
+Gentiles, is a consideration which has no relevance whatever to my
+case. The legal provisions, which alone had authority over an
+inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, were the Gentile laws
+sanctioned by the Roman suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the
+only law, which has authority in England, is that recognised by the
+sovereign Legislature. Jewish communities in England may have their
+private code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an English
+magistrate, if called upon to enforce their peculiar laws, would
+dismiss the complainants from the judgment seat, let us hope with more
+politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite as firmly.
+Moreover, in the matter of keeping pigs, we may be quite certain that
+Gadarene law left everybody free to do as he pleased, indeed
+encouraged the practice rather than otherwise. Not only was pork one
+of the commonest and one of the most favourite articles of Roman diet;
+but, to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a sacrificial animal of
+high importance. Sucking pigs played an important part in Hellenic
+purificatory rites; and everybody knows the significance of the Roman
+suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas-reliefs.
+
+Under these circumstances, only the extreme need of a despairing
+"reconciler" drowning in a sea of adverse facts, can explain the
+catching at such a poor straw as the reckless guess that the
+swineherds of the "country of the Gadarenes" were erring Jews, doing a
+little clandestine business on their own account. The endeavour to
+justify the asserted destruction of the swine by the analogy of
+breaking open a cask of smuggled spirits, and wasting their contents
+on the ground, is curiously unfortunate. Does Mr. Gladstone mean to
+suggest that a Frenchman landing at Dover, and coming upon a cask of
+smuggled brandy in the course of a stroll along the cliffs, has the
+right to break it open and waste its contents on the ground? Yet the
+party of Galileans who, according to the narrative, landed and took a
+walk on the Gadarene territory, were as much foreigners in the
+Decapolis as Frenchmen would be at Dover. Herod Antipas, their
+sovereign, had no jurisdiction in the Decapolis--they were strangers
+and aliens, with no more right to interfere with a pig-keeping Hebrew,
+than I have a right to interfere with an English professor of the
+Israelitic faith, if I see a slice of ham on his plate. According to
+the law of the country in which these Galilean foreigners found
+themselves, men might keep pigs if they pleased. If the men who kept
+them were Jews, it might be permissible for the strangers to inform
+the religious authority acknowledged by the Jews of Gadara; but to
+interfere themselves, in such a matter, was a step devoid of either
+moral or legal justification.
+
+Suppose a modern English Sabbatarian fanatic, who believes, on the
+strength of his interpretation of the fourth commandment, that it is a
+deadly sin to work on the "Lord's Day," sees a fellow Puritan yielding
+to the temptation of getting in his harvest on a fine Sunday
+morning--is the former justified in setting fire to the latter's corn?
+Would not an English court of justice speedily teach him better?
+
+In truth, the government which permits private persons, on any pretext
+(especially pious and patriotic pretexts), to take the law into their
+own hands, fails in the performance of the primary duties of all
+governments; while those who set the example of such acts, or who
+approve them, or who fail to disapprove them, are doing their best to
+dissolve civil society; they are compassers of illegality and fautors
+of immorality.
+
+I fully understand that Mr. Gladstone may not see the matter in this
+light. He may possibly consider that the union of Gadara with the
+Decapolis, by Augustus, was a "blackguard" transaction, which deprived
+Hellenic Gadarene law of all moral force; and that it was quite proper
+for a Jewish Galilean, going back to the time when the land of the
+Girgashites was given to his ancestors, some 1500 years before, to
+act, as if the state of things which ought to obtain, in territory
+which traditionally, at any rate, belonged to his forefathers, did
+really exist. And, that being so, I can only say I do not agree with
+him, but leave the matter to the appreciation of those of our
+countrymen, happily not yet the minority, who believe that the first
+condition of enduring liberty is obedience to the law of the land.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The end of the month drawing nigh, I thought it well to send away the
+manuscript of the foregoing pages yesterday, leaving open, in my own
+mind, the possibility of adding a succinct characterisation of Mr.
+Gladstone's controversial methods as illustrated therein. This
+morning, however, I had the pleasure of reading a speech which I think
+must satisfy the requirements of the most fastidious of controversial
+artists; and there occurs in it so concise, yet so complete, a
+delineation of Mr. Gladstone's way of dealing with disputed questions
+of another kind, that no poor effort of mine could better it as a
+description of the aspect which his treatment of scientific,
+historical, and critical questions presents to me.
+
+     The smallest examination would have told a man of his
+     capacity and of his experience that he was uttering the
+     grossest exaggerations, that he was basing arguments upon
+     the slightest hypotheses, and that his discussions only had
+     to be critically examined by the most careless critic in
+     order to show their intrinsic hollowness.
+
+Those who have followed me through this paper will hardly dispute the
+justice of this judgment, severe as it is. But the Chief Secretary
+for Ireland has science in the blood; and has the advantage of a
+natural, as well as a highly cultivated, aptitude for the use of
+methods of precision in investigation, and for the exact enunciation
+of the results thereby obtained.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [101] Thus Josephus (lib. ix.) says that his rival, Justus,
+          persuaded the citizens of Tiberias to "set the villages
+          that belonged to Gadara and Hippos on fire; which
+          villages were situated on the borders of Tiberias and
+          of the region of Scythopolis."
+
+    [102] It is said to have been destroyed by its captors.
+
+    [103] "But as to the Grecian cities, Gaza and Gadara and
+          Hippos, he cut them off from the kingdom and added them
+          to Syria."--Josephus, _Wars_, II. vi. 3. See also
+          _Antiquities_, XVII. xi. 4.
+
+    [104] _Geschichte des j�dischen Volkes im Zeitalter Christi_,
+          1886-90.
+
+    [105] If William the Conqueror, after fighting the battle
+          of Hastings, had marched to capture Chichester and then
+          returned to assault Rye, being all the while anxious to
+          reach London, his proceedings would not have been more
+          eccentric than Mr. Gladstone must imagine those of
+          Vespasian were.
+
+    [106] See Reland, _Palestina_ (1714), t. ii. p. 771. Also
+          Robinson, _Later Biblical Researches_ (1856), p. 87
+          _note_.
+
+
+
+
+XI: ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS
+
+[1891]
+
+
+The series of essays, in defence of the historical accuracy of the
+Jewish and Christian Scriptures, contributed by Mr. Gladstone to "Good
+Words," having been revised and enlarged by their author, appeared
+last year as a separate volume, under the somewhat defiant title of
+"The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture."
+
+The last of these Essays, entitled "Conclusion," contains an attack,
+or rather several attacks, couched in language which certainly does
+not err upon the side of moderation or of courtesy, upon statements
+and opinions of mine. One of these assaults is a deliberately devised
+attempt, not merely to rouse the theological prejudices ingrained in
+the majority of Mr. Gladstone's readers, but to hold me up as a person
+who has endeavoured to besmirch the personal character of the object
+of their veneration. For Mr. Gladstone asserts that I have undertaken
+to try "the character of our Lord" (p. 268); and he tells the many who
+are, as I think unfortunately, predisposed to place implicit credit in
+his assertions, that it has been reserved for me to discover that
+Jesus "was no better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer!" (p. 269).
+
+It was extremely easy for me to prove, as I did in the pages of this
+Review last December, that, under the most favourable interpretation,
+this amazing declaration must be ascribed to extreme confusion of
+thought. And, by bringing an abundance of good-will to the
+consideration of the subject, I have now convinced myself that it is
+right for me to admit that a person of Mr. Gladstone's intellectual
+acuteness really did mistake the reprobation of the course of conduct
+ascribed to Jesus, in a story of which I expressly say I do not
+believe a word, for an attack on his character and a declaration that
+he was "no better than a law-breaker, and an evil-doer." At any rate,
+so far as I can see, this is what Mr. Gladstone wished to be believed
+when he wrote the following passage:--
+
+     I must, however, in passing, make the confession that I did
+     not state with accuracy, as I ought to have done, the
+     precise form of the accusation. I treated it as an
+     imputation on the action of our Lord; he replies that it is
+     only an imputation on the narrative of three evangelists
+     respecting Him. The difference, from his point of view, is
+     probably material, and I therefore regret that I overlooked
+     it.[107]
+
+Considering the gravity of the error which is here admitted, the
+fashion of the withdrawal appears more singular than admirable. From
+my "point of view"--not from Mr. Gladstone's apparently--the little
+discrepancy between the facts and Mr. Gladstone's carefully offensive
+travesty of them is "probably" (only "probably") material. However, as
+Mr. Gladstone concludes with an official expression of regret for his
+error, it is my business to return an equally official expression of
+gratitude for the attenuated reparation with which I am favoured.
+
+Having cleared this specimen of Mr. Gladstone's controversial method
+out of the way, I may proceed to the next assault, that on a passage
+in an article on Agnosticism ("Nineteenth Century," February 1889),
+published two years ago. I there said, in referring to the Gadarene
+story, "Everything I know of law and justice convinces me that the
+wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
+evil example." On this, Mr. Gladstone, continuing his candid and
+urbane observations, remarks ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273) that,
+"Exercising his rapid judgment on the text," and "not inquiring what
+anybody else had known or said about it," I had missed a point in
+support of that "accusation against our Lord" which he has now been
+constrained to admit I never made.
+
+The "point" in question is that "Gadara was a city of Greeks rather
+than of Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine was
+innocent and lawful." I conceive that I have abundantly proved that
+Gadara answered exactly to the description here given of it; and I
+shall show, by and by, that Mr. Gladstone has used language which, to
+my mind, involves the admission that the authorities of the city were
+not Jews. But I have also taken a good deal of pains to show that the
+question thus raised is of no importance in relation to the main
+issue.[108] If Gadara was, as I maintain it was, a city of the
+Decapolis, Hellenistic in constitution and containing a predominantly
+Gentile population, my case is superabundantly fortified. On the other
+hand, if the hypothesis that Gadara was under Jewish government, which
+Mr. Gladstone seems sometimes to defend and sometimes to give up,
+were accepted, my case would be nowise weakened. At any rate, Gadara
+was not included within the jurisdiction of the tetrach of Galilee; if
+it had been, the Galileans who crossed over the lake to Gadara had no
+official status; and they had no more civil right to punish
+law-breakers than any other strangers.
+
+In my turn, however, I may remark that there is a "point" which
+appears to have escaped Mr. Gladstone's notice. And that is somewhat
+unfortunate, because his whole argument turns upon it. Mr. Gladstone
+assumes, as a matter of course, that pig-keeping was an offence
+against the "Law of Moses"; and, therefore, that Jews who kept pigs
+were as much liable to legal pains and penalties as Englishmen who
+smuggle brandy ("Impregnable Rock," p. 274).
+
+There can be no doubt that, according to the Law, as it is defined in
+the Pentateuch, the pig was an "unclean" animal, and that pork was a
+forbidden article of diet. Moreover, since pigs are hardly likely to
+be kept for the mere love of those unsavoury animals, pig-owning, or
+swine-herding, must have been, and evidently was, regarded as a
+suspicious and degrading occupation by strict Jews, in the first
+century A.D. But I should like to know on what provision of the Mosaic
+Law, as it is laid down in the Pentateuch, Mr. Gladstone bases the
+assumption, which is essential to his case, that the possession of
+pigs and the calling of a swineherd were actually illegal. The
+inquiry was put to me the other day; and, as I could not answer it, I
+turned up the article "Schwein" in Riehm's standard "Handw�rterbuch,"
+for help out of my difficulty; but unfortunately without success.
+After speaking of the martyrdom which the Jews, under Antiochus
+Epiphanes, preferred to eating pork, the writer proceeds:--
+
+     It may be, nevertheless, that the practice of keeping pigs
+     may have found its way into Palestine in the Gr�co-Roman
+     time, in consequence of the great increase of the non-Jewish
+     population; yet there is no evidence of it in the New
+     Testament; the great herd of swine, 2,000 in number,
+     mentioned in the narrative of the possessed, was feeding in
+     the territory of Gadara, which belonged to the Decapolis;
+     and the prodigal son became a swineherd with the native of a
+     far country into which he had wandered; in neither of these
+     cases is there reason for thinking that the possessors of
+     these herds were Jews.[109]
+
+Having failed in my search, so far, I took up the next book of
+reference at hand, Kitto's "Cyclop�dia" (vol. iii. 1876). There, under
+"Swine," the writer, Colonel Hamilton Smith, seemed at first to give
+me what I wanted, as he says that swine "appear to have been
+repeatedly introduced and reared by the Hebrew people,[110]
+notwithstanding the strong prohibition in the Law of Moses (Is. lxv.
+4)." But, in the first place, Isaiah's writings form no part of the
+"Law of Moses"; and, in the second place, the people denounced by the
+prophet in this passage are neither the possessors of pigs, nor
+swineherds, but these "which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable
+things is in their vessels." And when, in despair, I turned to the
+provisions of the Law itself, my difficulty was not cleared up.
+Leviticus xi. 8 (Revised Version) says, in reference to the pig and
+other unclean animals: "Of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their
+carcasses ye shall not touch." In the revised version of Deuteronomy,
+xiv. 8, the words of the prohibition are identical, and a skilful
+refiner might possibly satisfy himself, even if he satisfied nobody
+else, that "carcase" means the body of a live animal as well as a dead
+one; and that, since swineherds could hardly avoid contact with their
+charges, their calling was implicitly forbidden.[111] Unfortunately,
+the authorised version expressly says "dead carcase"; and thus the
+most rabbinically minded of reconcilers might find his casuistry
+foiled by that great source of surprises, the "original Hebrew." That
+such check is at any rate possible, is clear from the fact that the
+legal uncleanness of some animals, as food, did not interfere with
+their being lawfully possessed, cared for, and sold by Jews. The
+provisions for the ransoming of unclean beasts (Lev. xxvii. 27) and
+for the redemption of their sucklings (Numbers xviii. 15) sufficiently
+prove this. As the late Dr. Kalisch has observed in his "Commentary"
+on Leviticus, part ii. p. 129, note:--
+
+     Though asses and horses, camels and dogs, were kept by the
+     Israelites, they were, to a certain extent, associated with
+     the notion of impurity; they might be turned to profitable
+     account by their labour or otherwise, but in respect to food
+     they were an abomination.
+
+The same learned commentator (_loc. cit._ p. 88) proves that the
+Talmudists forbade the rearing of pigs by Jews, unconditionally and
+everywhere; and even included it under the same ban as the study of
+Greek philosophy, "since both alike were considered to lead to the
+desertion of the Jewish faith." It is very possible, indeed probable,
+that the Pharisees of the fourth decade of our first century took as
+strong a view of pig-keeping as did their spiritual descendants. But,
+for all that, it does not follow that the practice was illegal. The
+stricter Jews could not have despised and hated swineherds more than
+they did publicans; but, so far as I know, there is no provision in
+the Law against the practice of the calling of a tax-gatherer by a
+Jew. The publican was in fact very much in the position of an Irish
+process-server at the present day--more, rather than less, despised
+and hated on account of the perfect legality of his occupation. Except
+for certain sacrificial purposes, pigs were held in such abhorrence by
+the ancient Egyptians, that swineherds were not permitted to enter a
+temple, or to intermarry with other castes; and any one who had
+touched a pig, even accidentally, was unclean. But these very
+regulations prove that pig-keeping was not illegal; it merely involved
+certain civil and religious disabilities. For the Jews, dogs were
+typically "unclean animals"; but when that eminently pious Hebrew,
+Tobit, "went forth" with the angel "the young man's dog" went "with
+them" (Tobit v. 16) without apparent remonstrance from the celestial
+guide. I really do not see how an appeal to the Law could have
+justified any one in drowning Tobit's dog, on the ground that his
+master was keeping and feeding an animal quite as "unclean" as any
+pig. Certainly the excellent Raguel must have failed to see the harm
+of dog-keeping, for we are told that, on the traveller's return
+homewards, "the dog went after them" (xi. 4).
+
+Until better light than I have been able to obtain is thrown upon the
+subject, therefore, it is obvious that Mr. Gladstone's argumentative
+house has been built upon an extremely slippery quick-sand; perhaps
+even has no foundation at all.
+
+Yet another "point" does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone,
+who is so much shocked that I attach no overwhelming weight to the
+assertions contained in the synoptic Gospels, even when all three
+concur. These Gospels agree in stating, in the most express, and to
+some extent verbally identical, terms, that the devils entered the
+pigs at their own request,[112] and the third Gospel (viii. 31) tells
+us what the motive of the demons was in asking the singular boon:
+"They intreated him that he would not command them to depart into the
+abyss." From this, it would seem that the devils thought to exchange
+the heavy punishment of transportation to the abyss for the lighter
+penalty of imprisonment in swine. And some commentators, more
+ingenious than respectful to the supposed chief actor in this
+extraordinary fable, have dwelt, with satisfaction, upon the very
+unpleasant quarter of an hour which the evil spirits must have had,
+when the headlong rush of their maddened tenements convinced them how
+completely they were taken in. In the whole story, there is not one
+solitary hint that the destruction of the pigs was intended as a
+punishment of their owners, or of the swineherds. On the contrary, the
+concurrent testimony of the three narratives is to the effect that
+the catastrophe was the consequence of diabolic suggestion. And,
+indeed, no source could be more appropriate for an act of such
+manifest injustice and illegality.
+
+I can but marvel that modern defenders of the faith should not be glad
+of any reasonable excuse for getting rid of a story which, if it had
+been invented by Voltaire, would have justly let loose floods of
+orthodox indignation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, the hypothesis, to which Mr. Gladstone so fondly clings, finds
+no support in the provisions of the "Law of Moses" as that law is
+defined in the Pentateuch; while it is wholly inconsistent with the
+concurrent testimony of the synoptic Gospels, to which Mr. Gladstone
+attaches so much weight. In my judgment, it is directly contrary to
+everything which profane history tells us about the constitution and
+the population of the city of Gadara; and it commits those who accept
+it to a story which, if it were true, would implicate the founder of
+Christianity in an illegal and inequitable act.
+
+Such being the case, I consider myself excused from following Mr.
+Gladstone through all the meanderings of his late attempt to extricate
+himself from the maze of historical and exegetical difficulties in
+which he is entangled. I content myself with assuring those who, with
+my paper (not Mr. Gladstone's version of my arguments) in hand,
+consult the original authorities, that they will find full
+justification for every statement I have made. But in order to dispose
+those who cannot, or will not, take that trouble, to believe that the
+proverbial blindness of one that judges his own cause plays no part in
+inducing me to speak thus decidedly, I beg their attention to the
+following examination, which shall be as brief as I can make it, of
+the seven propositions in which Mr. Gladstone professes to give a
+faithful summary of my "errors."
+
+When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Holy See declared
+that certain propositions contained in the work of Bishop Jansen were
+heretical, the Jansenists of Port Royal replied that, while they were
+ready to defer to the Papal authority about questions of faith and
+morals, they must be permitted to judge about questions of fact for
+themselves; and that, really, the condemned propositions were not to
+be found in Jansen's writings. As everybody knows, His Holiness and
+the Grand Monarque replied to this, surely not unreasonable, plea
+after the manner of Lord Peter in the "Tale of a Tub." It is,
+therefore, not without some apprehension of meeting with a similar
+fate, that I put in a like plea against Mr. Gladstone's Bull. The
+seven propositions declared to be false and condemnable, in that
+kindly and gentle way which so pleasantly compares with the
+authoritative style of the Vatican (No. 5 more particularly), may or
+may not be true. But they are not to be found in anything I have
+written. And some of them diametrically contravene that which I have
+written. I proceed to prove my assertions.
+
+PROP. 1. _Throughout the paper he confounds together what I had
+distinguished, namely, the city of Gadara and the vicinage attached to
+it, not as a mere pomoerium, but as a rural district_.
+
+In my judgment, this statement is devoid of foundation. In my paper on
+"The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I point out, at some length, that,
+"in accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice," each city of the
+Decapolis must have been "surrounded by a certain amount of territory
+amenable to its jurisdiction": and, to enforce this conclusion, I
+quote what Josephus says about the "villages that belonged to Gadara
+and Hippos." As I understand the term _pomerium_ or _pomoerium_,[113]
+it means the space which, according to Roman custom, was kept free
+from buildings, immediately within and without the walls of a city;
+and which defined the range of the _auspicia urbana_. The conception
+of a _pomoerium_ as a "vicinage attached to" a city, appears to be
+something quite novel and original. But then, to be sure, I do not
+know how many senses Mr. Gladstone may attach to the word "vicinage."
+
+Whether Gadara had a _pomoerium_, in the proper technical sense, or
+not, is a point on which I offer no opinion. But that the city had a
+very considerable "rural district" attached to it and notwithstanding
+its distinctness, amenable to the jurisdiction of the Gentile
+municipal authorities, is one of the main points of my case.
+
+PROP. 2. _He more fatally confounds the local civil government and its
+following, including, perhaps, the whole wealthy class and those
+attached to it, with the ethnical character of a general population._
+
+Having survived confusion No. 1, which turns out not to be on my side,
+I am now confronted in No. 2 with a "more fatal" error--and so it is,
+if there be degrees of fatality; but, again, it is Mr. Gladstone's and
+not mine. It would appear, from this proposition (about the
+grammatical interpretation of which, however, I admit there are
+difficulties), that Mr. Gladstone holds that the "local civil
+government and its following among the wealthy," were ethnically
+different from the "general population." On p. 348, he further admits
+that the "wealthy and the local governing power" were friendly to the
+Romans. Are we then to suppose that it was the persons of Jewish
+"ethnical character" who favoured the Romans, while those of Gentile
+"ethnical character" were opposed to them? But, if that supposition is
+absurd, the only alternative is that the local civil government was
+ethnically Gentile. This is exactly my contention.
+
+At pp. 379 to 391 of the essay on "The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I
+have fully discussed the question of the ethnical character of the
+general population. I have shown that, according to Josephus, who
+surely ought to have known, Gadara was as much a Gentile city as
+Ptolemais; I have proved that he includes Gadara amongst the cities
+"that rose up against the Jews that were amongst them," which is a
+pretty definite expression of his belief that the "ethnical character
+of the general population" was Gentile. There is no question here of
+Jews of the Roman party fighting with Jews of the Zealot party, as Mr.
+Gladstone suggests. It is the non-Jewish and anti-Jewish general
+population which rises up against the Jews who had settled "among
+them."
+
+PROP. 3. _His one item of direct evidence as to the Gentile character
+of the city refers only to the former and not to the latter_.
+
+More fatal still. But, once more, not to me. I adduce not one, but a
+variety of "items" in proof of the non-Judaic character of the
+population of Gadara: the evidence of history; that of the coinage of
+the city; the direct testimony of Josephus, just cited--to mention no
+others. I repeat, if the wealthy people and those connected with
+them--the "classes" and the "hangers on" of Mr. Gladstone's
+well-known taxonomy--were, as he appears to admit they were, Gentiles;
+if the "civil government" of the city was in their hands, as the
+coinage proves it was; what becomes of Mr. Gladstone's original
+proposition in "The Impregnable Rock of Scripture" that "the
+population of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the population
+of the neighbourhood," were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law"? And
+what is the importance of estimating the precise proportion of Hebrews
+who may have resided, either in the city of Gadara or in its
+independent territory, when, as Mr. Gladstone now seems to admit (I am
+careful to say "seems"), the government, and consequently the law,
+which ruled in that territory and defined civil right and wrong was
+Gentile and not Judaic? But perhaps Mr. Gladstone is prepared to
+maintain that the Gentile "local civil government" of a city of the
+Decapolis administered Jewish law; and showed their respect for it,
+more particularly, by stamping their coinage with effigies of the
+Emperors.
+
+In point of fact, in his haste to attribute to me errors which I have
+not committed, Mr. Gladstone has given away his case.
+
+PROP. 4. _He fatally confounds the question of political party with
+those of nationality and of religion, and assumes that those who took
+the side of Rome in the factions that prevailed could not be subject
+to the Mosaic Law_.
+
+It would seem that I have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a
+"fatal error." But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of
+controversy; say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently
+probable. Now it is not decently probable, hardly indeed conceivable,
+that any one who has read Josephus, or any other historian of the
+Jewish war, should be unaware that there were Jews (of whom Josephus
+himself was one) who "Romanised" and, more or less openly, opposed the
+war party. But, however that may be, I assert that Mr. Gladstone
+neither has produced, nor can produce, a passage of my writing which
+affords the slightest foundation for this particular article of his
+indictment.
+
+PROP. 5. _His examination of the text of Josephus is alike one-sided,
+inadequate, and erroneous._
+
+Easy to say, hard to prove. So long as the authorities whom I have
+cited are on my side, I do not know why this singularly temperate and
+convincing dictum should trouble me. I have yet to become acquainted
+with Mr. Gladstone's claims to speak with an authority equal to that
+of scholars of the rank of Sch�rer, whose obviously just and necessary
+emendations he so unceremoniously pooh-poohs.
+
+PROP. 6. _Finally, he sets aside, on grounds not critical or
+historical, but partly subjective, the primary historical testimony on
+the subject, namely, that of the three Synoptic Evangelists, who
+write as contemporaries and deal directly with the subject, neither of
+which is done by any other authority_.
+
+Really this is too much! The fact is, as anybody can see who will turn
+to my article of February 1889 [VII. _supra_], out of which all this
+discussion has arisen, that the arguments upon which I rest the
+strength of my case touching the swine-miracle, are exactly
+"historical" and "critical." Expressly, and in words that cannot be
+misunderstood, I refuse to rest on what Mr. Gladstone calls
+"subjective" evidence. I abstain from denying the possibility of the
+Gadarene occurrence, and I even go so far as to speak of some physical
+analogies to possession. In fact, my quondam opponent, Dr. Wace,
+shrewdly, but quite fairly, made the most of these admissions; and
+stated that I had removed the only "consideration which would have
+been a serious obstacle" in the way of his belief in the Gadarene
+story.[114]
+
+So far from setting aside the authority of the synoptics on
+"subjective" grounds, I have taken a great deal of trouble to show
+that my non-belief in the story is based upon what appears to me to be
+evident; firstly, that the accounts of the three synoptic Gospels are
+not independent, but are founded upon a common source; secondly, that,
+even if the story of the common tradition proceeded from a
+contemporary, it would still be worthy of very little credit, seeing
+the manner in which the legends about medi�val miracles have been
+propounded by contemporaries. And in illustration of this position I
+wrote a special essay about the miracles reported by Eginhard.[115]
+
+In truth, one need go no further than Mr. Gladstone's sixth
+proposition to be convinced that contemporary testimony, even of
+well-known and distinguished persons, may be but a very frail reed for
+the support of the historian, when theological prepossession blinds
+the witness.[116]
+
+PROP. 7. _And he treats the entire question, in the narrowed form in
+which it arises upon secular testimony, as if it were capable of a
+solution so clear and summary as to warrant the use of the extremest
+weapons of controversy against those who presume to differ from him._
+
+The six heretical propositions which have gone before are enunciated
+with sufficient clearness to enable me to prove, without any
+difficulty, that, whosesoever they are, they are not mine. But number
+seven, I confess, is too hard for me. I cannot undertake to contradict
+that which I do not understand.
+
+What is the "entire question" which "arises" in a "narrowed form" upon
+"secular testimony"? After much guessing, I am fain to give up the
+conundrum. The "question" may be the ownership of the pigs; or the
+ethnological character of the Gadarenes; or the propriety of meddling
+with other people's property without legal warrant. And each of these
+questions might be so "narrowed" when it arose on "secular testimony"
+that I should not know where I was. So I am silent on this part of the
+proposition.
+
+But I do dimly discern, in the latter moiety of this mysterious
+paragraph, a reproof of that use of "the extremest weapons of
+controversy" which is attributed to me. Upon which I have to observe
+that I guide myself, in such matters, very much by the maxim of a
+great statesman, "Do ut des." If Mr. Gladstone objects to the
+employment of such weapons of defence, he would do well to abstain
+from them in attack. He should not frame charges which he has,
+afterwards, to admit are erroneous, in language of carefully
+calculated offensiveness ("Impregnable Rock," pp. 269-70); he should
+not assume that persons with whom he disagrees are so recklessly
+unconscientious as to evade the trouble of inquiring what has been
+said or known about a grave question ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273); he
+should not qualify the results of careful thought as "hand-over-head
+reasoning" ("Impregnable Rock," p. 274); he should not, as in the
+extraordinary propositions which I have just analysed, make assertions
+respecting his opponent's position and arguments which are
+contradicted by the plainest facts.
+
+Persons who, like myself, have spent their lives outside the political
+world, yet take a mild and philosophical concern in what goes on in
+it, often find it difficult to understand what our neighbours call the
+psychological moment of this or that party leader, and are,
+occasionally, loth to believe in the seeming conditions of certain
+kinds of success. And when some chieftain, famous in political
+warfare, adventures into the region of letters or of science, in full
+confidence that the methods which have brought fame and honour in his
+own province will answer there, he is apt to forget that he will be
+judged by these people, on whom rhetorical artifices have long ceased
+to take effect; and to whom mere dexterity in putting together
+cleverly ambiguous phrases, and even the great art of offensive
+misrepresentation, are unspeakably wearisome. And, if that weariness
+finds its expression in sarcasm, the offender really has no right to
+cry out. Assuredly ridicule is no test of truth, but it is the
+righteous meed of some kinds of error. Nor ought the attempt to
+confound the expression of a revolted sense of fair dealing with
+arrogant impatience of contradiction, to restrain those to whom "the
+extreme weapons of controversy" come handy from using them. The
+function of police in the intellectual, if not in the civil, economy
+may sometimes be legitimately discharged by volunteers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some time ago in one of the many criticisms with which I am favoured,
+I met with the remark that, at our time of life, Mr. Gladstone and I
+might be better occupied than in fighting over the Gadarene pigs. And,
+if these too famous swine were the only parties to the suit, I, for my
+part, should fully admit the justice of the rebuke. But, under the
+beneficent rule of the Court of Chancery, in former times, it was not
+uncommon, that a quarrel about a few perches of worthless land, ended
+in the ruin of ancient families and the engulfing of great estates;
+and I think that our admonisher failed to observe the analogy--to note
+the momentous consequences of the judgment which may be awarded in the
+present apparently insignificant action _in re_ the swineherds of
+Gadara.
+
+The immediate effect of such judgment will be the decision of the
+question, whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the
+demonology of the men of the first century, as divinely revealed
+truth, or to reject it, as degrading falsity. The reverend Principal
+of King's College has delivered his judgment in perfectly clear and
+candid terms. Two years since, Dr. Wace said that he believed the
+story as it stands; and consequently he holds, as a part of divine
+revelation, that the spiritual world comprises devils, who, under
+certain circumstances, may enter men and be transferred from them to
+four-footed beasts. For the distinguished Anglican Divine and Biblical
+scholar, that is part and parcel of the teachings respecting the
+spiritual world which we owe to the founder of Christianity. It is an
+inseparable part of that Christian orthodoxy which, if a man rejects,
+he is to be considered and called an "infidel." According to the
+ordinary rules of interpretation of language, Mr. Gladstone must hold
+the same view.
+
+If antiquity and universality are valid tests of the truth of any
+belief, no doubt this is one of the beliefs so certified. There are no
+known savages, nor people sunk in the ignorance of partial
+civilisation, who do not hold them. The great majority of Christians
+have held them and still hold them. Moreover the oldest records we
+possess of the early conceptions of mankind in Egypt and in
+Mesopotamia prove that exactly such demonology, as is implied in the
+Gadarene story, formed the substratum, and, among the early Accadians,
+apparently the greater part, of their supposed knowledge of the
+spiritual world. M. Lenormant's profoundly interesting work on
+Babylonian magic and the magical texts given in the Appendix to
+Professor Sayce's "Hibbert Lectures" leave no doubt on this head. They
+prove that the doctrine of possession, and even the particular case of
+pig, possession,[117] were firmly believed in by the Egyptians and the
+Mesopotamians before the tribes of Israel invaded Palestine. And it is
+evident that these beliefs, from some time after the exile and
+probably much earlier, completely interpenetrated the Jewish mind, and
+thus became inseparably interwoven with the fabric of the synoptic
+Gospels.
+
+Therefore, behind the question of the acceptance of the doctrines of
+the oldest heathen demonology as part of the fundamental beliefs of
+Christianity, there lies the question of the credibility of the
+Gospels, and of their claim to act as our instructors, outside that
+ethical province in which they appeal to the consciousness of all
+thoughtful men. And still, behind this problem, there lies
+another--how far do these ancient records give a sure foundation to
+the prodigious fabric of Christian dogma, which has been built upon
+them by the continuous labours of speculative theologians, during
+eighteen centuries?
+
+I submit that there are few questions before the men of the rising
+generation, on the answer to which the future hangs more fatally, than
+this. We are at the parting of the ways. Whether the twentieth century
+shall see a recrudescence of the superstitions of medi�val papistry,
+or whether it shall witness the severance of the living body of the
+ethical ideal of prophetic Israel from the carcase, foul with savage
+superstitions and cankered with false philosophy, to which the
+theologians have bound it, turns upon their final judgment of the
+Gadarene tale.
+
+The gravity of the problems ultimately involved in the discussion of
+the legend of Gadara will, I hope, excuse a persistence in returning
+to the subject, to which I should not have been moved by merely
+personal considerations.
+
+With respect to the diluvial invective which overflowed thirty-three
+pages of the "Nineteenth Century" last January, I doubt not that it
+has a catastrophic importance in the estimation of its author. I, on
+the other hand, may be permitted to regard it as a mere spate; noisy
+and threatening while it lasted, but forgotten almost as soon as it
+was over. Without my help, it will be judged by every instructed and
+clear-headed reader; and that is fortunate, because, were aid
+necessary, I have cogent reasons for withholding it.
+
+In an article characterised by the same qualities of thought and
+diction, entitled "A Great Lesson," which appeared in the "Nineteenth
+Century" for September 1887, the Duke of Argyll, firstly, charged the
+whole body of men of science, interested in the question, with having
+conspired to ignore certain criticisms of Mr. Darwin's theory of the
+origin of coral reefs; and, secondly, he asserted that some person
+unnamed had "actually induced" Mr. John Murray to delay the
+publication of his views on that subject "for two years."
+
+It was easy for me and for others to prove that the first statement
+was not only, to use the Duke of Argyll's favourite expression,
+"contrary to fact," but that it was without any foundation whatever.
+The second statement rested on the Duke of Argyll's personal
+authority. All I could do was to demand the production of the evidence
+for it. Up to the present time, so far as I know, that evidence has
+not made its appearance; nor has there been any withdrawal of, or
+apology for, the erroneous charge.
+
+Under these circumstances most people will understand why the Duke of
+Argyll may feel quite secure of having the battle all to himself,
+whenever it pleases him to attack me.
+
+[See the note at the end of "Hasisadra's Adventure" (vol iv. p. 283).
+The discussion on coral reefs, at the meeting of the British
+Association this year, proves that Mr. Darwin's views are defended
+now, as strongly as in 1891, by highly competent authorities. October
+25, 1893.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [107] _Nineteenth Century_, February 1891, pp. 339-40.
+
+    [108] Neither is it of any consequence whether the locality
+          of the supposed miracle was Gadara, or Gerasa, or
+          Gergesa. But I may say that I was well acquainted with
+          Origen's opinion respecting Gergesa. It is fully
+          discussed and rejected in Riehm's _Handw�rterbuch_. In
+          Kitto's _Biblical Cyclop�dia_ (ii. p. 51) Professor
+          Porter remarks that Origen merely "_conjectures_" that
+          Gergesa was indicated: and he adds, "Now, in a question
+          of this kind conjectures cannot be admitted. We must
+          implicitly follow the most ancient and creditable
+          testimony, which clearly pronounces in favour of
+          Gadar�nh�n. This reading is adopted by Tischendorf,
+          Alford, and Tregelles."
+
+    [109] I may call attention, in passing, to the fact that this
+          authority, at any rate, has no sort of doubt of the
+          fact that Jewish Law did not rule in Gadara (indeed,
+          under the head of "Gadara," in the same work, it is
+          expressly stated that the population of the place
+          consisted "predominantly of heathens"), and that he
+          scouts the notion that the Gadarene swineherds were
+          Jews.
+
+    [110] The evidence adduced, so far as post-exile times are
+          concerned, appears to me insufficient to prove this
+          assertion.
+
+    [111] Even Leviticus xi. 26, cited without reference to the
+          context, will not serve the purpose; because the swine
+          _is_ "cloven-footed" (Lev. xi. 7).
+
+    [112] 1st Gospel: "And the devils _besought him_, saying,
+          If Thou cast us out send us away _into_ the herd of
+          swine." 2d Gospel: "They _besought him_, saying, Send
+          us _into_ the swine." 3d Gospel: "They _intreated him_
+          that he would give them leave to enter _into_ them."
+
+    [113] See Marquardt, _R�mische Staatsverwaltung_, Bd. III.
+          p. 408.
+
+    [114] _Nineteenth Century_, March 1889 (p. 362).
+
+    [115] "The Value of Witness to the Miraculous." _Nineteenth
+          Century_, March 1889.
+
+    [116] I cannot ask the Editor of this Review to reprint pages
+          of an old article,--but the following passages
+          sufficiently illustrate the extent and the character of
+          the discrepancy between the facts of the case and Mr.
+          Gladstone's account of them:--
+
+          "Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am
+          unreasonably sceptical if I say that the existence of
+          demons who can be transferred from a man to a pig does
+          thus contravene probability. Let me be perfectly
+          candid. I admit I have no _� priori_ objection to
+          offer.... I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am
+          unable to show cause why these transferable devils
+          should not exist." ... ("Agnosticism," _Nineteenth
+          Century_, 1889, p. 177).
+
+          "What then do we know about the originator, or
+          originators, of this groundwork--of that threefold
+          tradition which all three witnesses (in Paley's phrase)
+          agree upon--that we should allow their mere statements
+          to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of
+          common sense, of exact science, and to imperil the
+          respect which all would be glad to be able to render to
+          their Master?" (_ibid._ p. 175).
+
+          I then go on through a couple of pages to discuss the
+          value of the evidence of the synoptics on critical and
+          historical grounds. Mr. Gladstone cites the essay from
+          which these passages are taken, whence I suppose he has
+          read it; though it may be that he shares the impatience
+          of Cardinal Manning where my writings are concerned.
+          Such impatience will account for, though it will not
+          excuse, his sixth proposition.
+
+    [117] The wicked, before being annihilated, returned to the
+          world to disturb men; they entered into the body of
+          unclean animals, "often that of a pig, as on the
+          Sarcophagus of Seti I. in the Soane
+          Museum."--Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic,_ p. 88, Editorial
+          Note.
+
+
+END OF VOL. V
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+
+WHAT IS ELECTRICITY?
+   By Prof. JOHN TROWBRIDGE, of Harvard University.
+   12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION.
+   A Research into the Subconscious Nature of Man and Society.
+   By BORIS SIDIS, M.A., Ph.D.,
+   Associate in Psychology at the Pathological Institute
+   of the New York State Hospitals.
+   With an Introduction by Prof. William James, of Harvard University.
+   Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SPENCER'S SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY, 12mo, cloth, $2.00 per volume.
+     _NEW EDITION OF_
+     First Principles.
+
+     By HERBERT SPENCER. New and revised (sixth) edition of the
+     first volume of the author's Synthetic Philosophy.
+
+     This fundamental and most important work has been changed in
+     substance and in form to a considerable extent, and largely
+     rewritten and wholly reset. It is now forty years since the
+     author began the "First Principles," and its presentation in
+     this definitive form, with the author's last revisions, is
+     an event of peculiar interest and consequence. While
+     experience has not caused him to recede from the general
+     principles set forth, he has made some important changes in
+     the substance and form. His amendments of matter and manner
+     are now final.
+
+     The contents of the several volumes of the series are as
+     follows:
+
+     1. First Principles.
+            I. The Unknowable.
+           II. The Knowable.
+
+     2. The Principles of Biology. Vol. 1.
+           I. The Data of Biology.
+          II. The Inductions of Biology.
+         III. The Evolution of Life.
+
+     3. The Principles of Biology. Vol. 2.
+          IV. Morphological Development.
+           V. Physiological Development.
+          VI. Laws of Multiplication.
+
+     4. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1.
+           I. The Data of Psychology.
+          II. The Inductions of Psychology.
+         III. General Synthesis.
+          IV. Special Synthesis.
+           V. Physical Synthesis.
+
+     5. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 2.
+          VI. Special Analysis.
+         VII. General Analysis.
+        VIII. Congruities.
+          IX. Corollaries.
+
+     6. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 1.
+           I. The Data of Sociology.
+          II. The Inductions of Sociology.
+         III. The Domestic Relations.
+
+     7. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 2.
+          IV. Ceremonial Institutions.
+           V. Political Institutions.
+
+     8. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 3.
+          VI. Ecclesiastical Institutions.
+         VII. Professional Institutions.
+        VIII. Industrial Institutions.
+
+     9. The Principles of Ethics. Vol. 1.
+           I. The Data of Ethics.
+          II. The Inductions of Ethics.
+         III. The Ethics of Individual Life.
+
+    10. The Principles of Ethics. Vol. 2.
+          IV. The Ethics of Social Life: Justice.
+           V. The Ethics of Social Life: Negative Beneficence.
+          VI. The Ethics of Social Life: Positive Beneficence.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOOKS BY PROF. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.
+
+THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.
+     By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A.,
+     Professor of the Harmony of Science and Revelation, Oberlin College;
+     Author of "The Logic of Christian Evidences,"
+     "The Ice Age in North America," etc.
+     Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+     This volume contains the ripest fruit of the author's varied
+     studies along the several cognate lines of evidence which
+     converge with special power in recent times to shed light
+     upon the foundations of Christianity. Among the subjects
+     discussed are Limits of Scientific Thought, Paradoxes of
+     Science, God and Nature, Darwinism and Design, Mediate
+     Miracles, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, The Newly Discovered
+     External Evidences, The Evidence of Textual Criticism,
+     Internal Evidence of the Early Date of the Gospel, and
+     Positive Results of the Cumulative Evidence. These chapters
+     are an elaboration of the Lowell Institute Lectures
+     delivered in Boston in 1896.
+
+GREENLAND ICEFIELDS, AND LIFE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.
+     With a New Discussion of the Causes of the Ice Age.
+     By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A., Author of
+     "The Ice Age in North America," "Man and the Glacial
+     Period," etc., and WARREN UPHAM, A.M., F.G.S.A., late of the
+     Geological Surveys of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the
+     United States. With numerous Maps and Illustrations. 12mo.
+     Cloth, $2.00.
+
+THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, and its Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man.
+     With an Appendix on "The Probable Cause of Glaciation," by
+     WARREN UPHAM, F.G.S.A., Assistant on the Geological Surveys
+     of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the United States. New and
+     enlarged edition. With 150 Maps and Illustrations. 8vo, 625
+     pages, and Index. Cloth, $5.00.
+
+MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD.
+     International Scientific Series.
+     With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+     "The earlier chapters describing glacial action, and the
+     traces of it in North America--especially the defining of
+     its limits, such as the terminal moraine of the great
+     movement itself--are of great interest and value The maps
+     and diagrams are of much assistance in enabling the reader
+     to grasp the vast extent of the movement."--_London
+     Spectator_.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF HERBERT SPENCER.
+
+SOCIAL STATICS.
+     New and revised edition, including "The Man _versus_ The
+     State." A series of essays on political tendencies
+     heretofore published separately. 12mo. 420 pages. Cloth,
+     $2.00.
+
+     "Mr. Spencer has thoroughly studied the issues which are
+     behind the social and political life of our own time, not
+     exactly those issues which are discussed in Parliament or in
+     Congress, but the principles of all modern government, which
+     are slowly changing in response to the broader industrial
+     and general development of human experience. One will obtain
+     no suggestions out of his book for guiding a political party
+     or carrying a point in economics, but he will find the
+     principles of sociology, as they pertain to the whole of
+     life, better stated in these pages than he can find them
+     expressed anywhere else. It is in this sense that this work
+     is important and fresh and vitalizing. It goes constantly to
+     the foundation of things."--_Boston Herald_.
+
+VARIOUS FRAGMENTS,
+     12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
+
+     Along with a considerable variety of other matter, these
+     "Fragments" include a number of replies to criticisms, among
+     which will be found some of the best specimens of Mr.
+     Spencer's controversial writings, notably his letter to the
+     London _Athen�um_ on Professor Huxley's famous address on
+     Evolutionary Ethics. His views on copyright, national and
+     international, "Social Evolution and Social Duty," and
+     "Anglo-American Arbitration," also form a part of the
+     contents.
+
+EDUCATION: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical.
+     12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.25.
+
+     CONTENTS: What Knowledge is of most Worth? Intellectual
+     Education. Moral Education. Physical Education.
+
+THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
+     The fifth volume in the International scientific Series.
+     12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
+     CONTENTS: Our need of it. Is there a Social Science? Nature
+     of the Social Science. Difficulties of the Social Science.
+     Objective Difficulties. Subjective Difficulties,
+     Intellectual. Subjective Difficulties, Emotional, The
+     Educational Bias. The Bias of Patriotism. The Class Bias.
+     The Political Bias. The Theological Bias. Discipline.
+     Preparation in Biology. Preparation in Psychology.
+     Conclusion.
+
+THE INADEQUACY OF "NATURAL SELECTION."
+     12mo. Paper, 30 cents.
+
+     This essay, in which Professor Weismann's theories are
+     criticised, is reprinted from the _Contemporary Review_, and
+     comprises a forcible presentation of Mr. Spencer's views
+     upon the general subject indicated in the title.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.
+     Sketches of their Lives and Scientific Work.
+     Edited and revised by WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS, M.D.
+     With Portraits. 8vo, Cloth, $4.00.
+
+     Impelled solely by an enthusiastic love of Nature, and
+     neither asking nor receiving outside aid, these early
+     workers opened the way and initiated the movement through
+     which American science has reached its present commanding
+     position. This book gives some account of these men, their
+     early struggles, their scientific labors, and, whenever
+     possible, something of their personal characteristics. This
+     information, often very difficult to obtain, has been
+     collected from a great variety of sources, with the utmost
+     care to secure accuracy. It is presented in a series of
+     sketches, some fifty in all, each with a single exception
+     accompanied with a well-authenticated portrait.
+
+     "Fills a place that needed filling, and is likely to be
+     widely read."--_N.Y. Sun_.
+
+     "It is certainly a useful and convenient volume, and
+     readable too, if we judge correctly of the degree of
+     accuracy of the whole by critical examination of those cases
+     in which our own knowledge enables us to form an opinion....
+     In general, it seems to us that the handy volume is
+     specially to be commended for setting in just historical
+     perspective many of the earlier scientists who are neither
+     very generally nor very well known."--_New York Evening
+     Post_.
+
+     "A wonderfully interesting volume. Many a young man will
+     find it fascinating. The compilation of the book is a work
+     well done, well worth the doing."--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+     "One of the most valuable books which we have
+     received."--_Boston Advertiser_.
+
+     "A book of no little educational value.... An extremely
+     valuable work of reference."--_Boston Beacon_.
+
+     "A valuable handbook for those whose work runs on these same
+     lines, and is likely to prove of lasting interest to those
+     for whom '_les documents humain_' are second only to history
+     in importance--nay, are a vital part of history."--_Boston
+     Transcript_.
+
+     "A biographical history of science in America, noteworthy
+     for its completeness and scope.... All of the sketches are
+     excellently prepared and unusually interesting."--_Chicago
+     Record_.
+
+     "One of the most valuable contributions to American
+     literature recently made.... The pleasing style in which
+     these sketches are written, the plans taken to secure
+     accuracy, and the information conveyed, combine to give them
+     great value and interest. No better or more inspiring
+     reading could be placed in the hands of an intelligent and
+     aspiring young man."--_New York Christian Work_.
+
+     "A book whose interest and value are not for to-day or
+     to-morrow, but for indefinite time."--_Rochester Herald_.
+
+     "It is difficult to imagine a reader of ordinary
+     intelligence who would not be entertained by the book....
+     Conciseness, exactness, urbanity of tone, and
+     interestingness are the four qualities which chiefly impress
+     the reader of these sketches."--_Buffalo Express_.
+
+     "Full of interesting and valuable matter."--_The Churchman_.
+
+New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION, from Thales to Huxley.
+     By EDWARD CLODD, President of the Folk-Lore Society;
+     Author of "The Story of Creation,"
+     "The Story of 'Primitive' Man," etc.
+     With Portraits. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
+
+     "The mass of interesting material which Mr. Clodd has got
+     together and woven into a symmetrical story of the progress
+     from ignorance and theory to knowledge and the intelligent
+     recording of fact is prodigious.... The 'goal' to which Mr.
+     Clodd leads us in so masterly a fashion is but the starting
+     point of fresh achievements, and, in due course, fresh
+     theories. His book furnishes an important contribution to a
+     liberal education."--_London Daily Chronicle_.
+
+     "We are always glad to meet Mr. Clodd. He is never dull; he
+     is always well informed, and he says what he has to say with
+     clearness and precision.... The interest intensifies as Mr.
+     Clodd attempts to show the part really played in the growth
+     of the doctrine of evolution by men like Wallace, Darwin,
+     Huxley, and Spencer.... We commend the book to those who
+     want to know what evolution really means."--_London Times_.
+
+     "This is a book which was needed.... Altogether, the book
+     could hardly be better done. It is luminous, lucid, orderly,
+     and temperate. Above all, it is entirely free from personal
+     partisanship. Each chief actor is sympathetically treated,
+     and friendship is seldom or never allowed to overweight
+     sound judgment."--_London Academy_.
+
+     "We can assure the reader that he will find in this work a
+     very useful guide to the lives and labors of leading
+     evolutionists of the past and present. Especially
+     serviceable is the account of Mr. Herbert Spencer and his
+     share in rediscovering evolution, and illustrating its
+     relations to the whole field of human knowledge. His
+     forcible style and wealth of metaphor make all that Mr.
+     Clodd writes arrestive and interesting."--_London Literary
+     World_.
+
+     "Can not but prove welcome to fair-minded men.... To read it
+     is to have an object-lesson in the meaning of evolution....
+     There is no better book on the subject for the general
+     reader.... No one could go through the book without being
+     both refreshed and newly instructed by its masterly survey
+     of the growth of the most powerful idea of modern
+     times."--_The Scotsman_.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+EVOLUTION OF MAN AND CHRISTIANITY.
+     New edition. By the Rev. HOWARD MACQUEARY.
+     With a new Preface, in which the Author answers his Critics,
+     and with some important Additions. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+     "This is a revised and enlarged edition of a book published
+     last year. The author reviews criticisms upon the first
+     edition, denies that he rejects the doctrine of the
+     incarnation, admits his doubts of the physical resurrection
+     of Christ, and his belief in evolution. The volume is to be
+     marked as one of the most profound expressions of the modern
+     movement toward broader theological positions."--_Brooklyn
+     Times_.
+
+     "He does not write with the animus of the destructive
+     school; he intends to be, and honestly believes he is, doing
+     a work of construction, or at least of reconstruction.... He
+     writes with manifest earnestness and conviction, and in a
+     style which is always clear and energetic."--_Churchman_.
+
+HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
+     By Dr. JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER.
+     12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+     "The key-note to this volume is found in the antagonism
+     between the progressive tendencies of the human mind and the
+     pretensions of ecclesiastical authority, as developed in the
+     history of modern science. No previous writer has treated
+     the subject from this point of view, and the present
+     monograph will be found to possess no less originality of
+     conception than vigor of reasoning and wealth of
+     erudition."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+A CRITICAL HISTORY OF FREE THOUGHT IN REFERENCE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
+     By Rev. Canon ADAM STOREY FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., etc.
+     12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
+
+     "A conflict might naturally be anticipated between the
+     reasoning faculties of man and a religion which claims the
+     right, on superhuman authority, to impose limits on the
+     field or manner of their exercise. It is the chief of the
+     movements of free thought which it is my purpose to
+     describe, in their historic succession, and their connection
+     with intellectual causes. We must ascertain the facts,
+     discover the causes, and read the moral."--_The Author_.
+
+CREATION OR EVOLUTION? A Philosophical Inquiry.
+     By GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS,
+     12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
+
+     "A treatise on the great question of Creation or Evolution
+     by one who is neither a naturalist nor theologian, and who
+     does not profess to bring to the discussion a special
+     equipment in either of the sciences which the controversy
+     arrays against each other, may seem strange at first sight;
+     but Mr. Curtis will satisfy the reader, before many pages
+     have been turned, that he has a substantial contribution to
+     make to the debate, and that his book is one to be treated
+     with respect. His part is to apply to the reasonings of the
+     men of science the rigid scrutiny with which the lawyer is
+     accustomed to test the value and pertinency of testimony,
+     and the legitimacy of inferences from established
+     facts."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+     "Mr. Curtis's book is honorably distinguished from a sadly
+     too great proportion of treatises which profess to discuss
+     the relation of scientific theories to religion, by its
+     author's thorough acquaintance with his subject, his
+     scrupulous fairness, and remarkable freedom from
+     passion."--_London Literary World_.
+
+D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue, New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY.
+A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.
+     By ANDREW D. WHITE, LL.D., late President and
+     Professor of History at Cornell University.
+     In two volumes. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.
+
+     "The story of the struggle of searchers after truth with the
+     organized forces of ignorance, bigotry, and superstition is
+     the most inspiring chapter in the whole history of mankind.
+     That story has never been better told than by the
+     ex-President of Cornell University in these two volumes....
+     A wonderful story it is that he tells."--_London Daily
+     Chronicle_.
+
+     "A literary event of prime importance is the appearance of
+     'A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
+     Christendom.'"--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+     "Such an honest and thorough treatment of the subject in all
+     its bearings that it will carry weight and be accepted as an
+     authority in tracing the process by which the scientific
+     method has come to be supreme in modern thought and
+     life."--_Boston Herald_.
+
+     "A great work of a great man upon great subjects, and will
+     always be a religio-scientific classic."--_Chicago Evening
+     Post_.
+
+     "It is graphic, lucid, even-tempered--never bitter nor
+     vindictive. No student of human progress should fail to read
+     these volumes. While they have about them the fascination of
+     a well-told tale, they are also crowded with the facts of
+     history that have had a tremendous bearing upon the
+     development of the race."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+     "The same liberal spirit that marked his public life is seen
+     in the pages of his book, giving it a zest and interest that
+     can not fail to secure for it hearty commendation and honest
+     praise."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger_.
+
+     "A conscientious summary of the body of learning to which it
+     relates accumulated during long years of research.... A
+     monument of industry."--_N.Y. Evening Post_.
+
+     "A work which constitutes in many ways the most instructive
+     review that has ever been written of the evolution of human
+     knowledge in its conflict with dogmatic belief.... As a
+     contribution to the literature of liberal thought, the book
+     is one the importance of which can not be easily
+     overrated."--_Boston Beacon_.
+
+     "The most valuable contribution that has yet been made to
+     the history of the conflicts between the theologists and the
+     scientists."--_Buffalo Commercial_.
+
+     "Undoubtedly the most exhaustive treatise which has been
+     written on this subject.... Able, scholarly, critical,
+     impartial in tone and exhaustive in treatment."--_Boston
+     Advertiser_.
+
+New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A NEW BOOK BY PROF. GROOS.
+
+THE PLAY OF MAN.
+     By KARL GROOS, Professor of Philosophy in the University of
+     Basel, and author of "The Play of Animals." Translated, with
+     the author's cooperation, by Elizabeth L. Baldwin, and
+     edited, with a Preface and Appendix, by Prof. J. Mark
+     Baldwin, of Princeton University. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50 net;
+     postage, 12 cents additional.
+
+     The results of Professor Groos's original and acute
+     investigations are of peculiar value to those who are
+     interested in psychology and sociology, and they are of
+     great importance to educators. He presents the
+     anthropological aspects of the subject treated in his
+     psychological study of the Play of Animals, which has
+     already become a classic. Professor Groos, who agrees with
+     the followers of Weismann, develops the great importance of
+     the child's play as tending to strengthen his inheritance in
+     the acquisition of adaptations to his environment. The
+     influence of play on character, and its relation to
+     education, are suggestively indicated. The playful
+     manifestations affecting the child himself and those
+     affecting his relations to others have been carefully
+     classified, and the reader is led from the simpler exercises
+     of the sensory apparatus through a variety of divisions to
+     inner imitations and social play. The biological, �sthetic,
+     ethical, and pedagogical standpoints receive much attention
+     from the investigator. While this book is an illuminating
+     contribution to scientific literature, it is of eminently
+     practical value. Its illustrations and lessons will be
+     studied and applied by educators, and the importance of this
+     original presentation of a most fertile subject will be
+     appreciated by parents as well as by those who are
+     interested as general students of sociological and
+     psychological themes.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Collected Essays, Volume V, by T. H. Huxley
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Essays, Volume V, by T. H. Huxley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Collected Essays, Volume V
+       Science and Christian Tradition: Essays
+
+Author: T. H. Huxley
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2005 [EBook #15905]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME V ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<!-- Page 1 -->
+
+<h1>COLLECTED ESSAYS: VOLUME V</h1><!-- Page 2 -->
+
+<h2>SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION<!-- Page 3 --></h2>
+
+<h3>BY THOMAS H. HUXLEY</h3>
+
+<h4>NEW YORK, D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1902</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS" ></a><!-- Page 33 -->CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="TOC">
+<colgroup span="2"><col align="left" /><col align="right" /></colgroup>
+<tr><td><a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE.</b></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">I.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#I"><b>PROLOGUE</b></a></td><td>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2" align="center">(<i>Controverted Questions</i>, 1892).</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#II"><b>SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM [1887]</b></a></td><td>59</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#III"><b>SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE [1887]</b></a></td><td>90</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">IV.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IV"><b>AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY [1887]</b></a></td><td>126</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">V.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#V"><b>THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS [1889]</b></a></td><td>160</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">VI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#VI"><b>POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES [1891]</b></a></td><td>192</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">VII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#VII"><b>AGNOSTICISM [1889]</b></a></td><td>209</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">VIII.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#VIII"><b>AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER [1889]</b></a></td><td>263</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">IX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IX"><b>AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY [1889]</b></a></td><td>309</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">X.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#X"><b>THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE [1890]</b></a></td><td>366</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">XI.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#XI"><b>ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS [1891]</b></a> </td><td>393</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE" ></a><!-- Page 4 --><!-- Page 5 -->PREFACE</h2>
+
+
+<p>&quot;For close upon forty years I have been writing with one purpose; from
+time to time, I have fought for that which seemed to me the truth,
+perhaps still more, against that which I have thought error; and, in
+this way, I have reached, indeed over-stepped, the threshold of old
+age. There, every earnest man has to listen to the voice within: 'Give
+an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I have been an unjust steward my conscience does not bear
+witness. At times blundering, at times negligent, Heaven knows: but,
+on the whole, I have done that which I felt able and called upon to
+do; and I have done it without looking to the right or to the left;
+seeking no man's favor, fearing no man's disfavor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what is it that I have been doing? In the end one's conceptions
+should form a whole, though only parts may have found utterance, as
+occasion arose; now do these exhibit harmony and mutual connexion? In
+one's zeal much of the old gets broken to pieces; but has one made
+ready something new, fit to be set in the place of the old?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That they merely destroy without reconstructing, is the especial
+charge, with which those who work in this direction are constantly
+reproached. In a certain sense I do not defend myself against the
+charge; but I deny that any reproach is deserved.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have never proposed to myself to begin outward construction;
+because I do not believe that the time has come for it. Our present
+business is with inward preparation, <!-- Page 6 -->especially the preparation of
+those who have ceased to be content with the old, and find no
+satisfaction in half measures. I have wished, and I still wish, to
+disturb no man's peace of mind, no man's beliefs; but only to point
+out to those in whom they are already shattered, the direction in
+which, in my conviction, firmer ground lies.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1" ></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>So wrote one of the protagonists of the New Reformation&mdash;and a
+well-abused man if ever there was one&mdash;a score of years since, in the
+remarkable book in which he discusses the negative and the positive
+results of the rigorous application of scientific method to the
+investigation of the higher problems of human life.</p>
+
+<p>Recent experience leads me to imagine that there may be a good many
+countrymen of my own, even at this time, to whom it may be profitable
+to read, mark and inwardly digest, the weighty words of the author of
+that &quot;Leben Jesu,&quot; which, half a century ago, stirred the religious
+world so seriously that it has never settled down again quite on the
+old foundations; indeed, some think it never will. I have a personal
+interest in the carrying out of the recommendation I venture to make.
+It may enable many worthy persons, in whose estimation I should really
+be glad to stand higher than I do, to become aware of the possibility
+that my motives in writing the essays, contained in this and the
+preceding volume, were not exactly those that they ascribe to me.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 7 -->I too have reached the term at which the still, small voice, more
+audible than any other to the dulled ear of age, makes its demand; and
+I have found that it is of no sort of use to try to cook the accounts
+rendered. Nevertheless, I distinctly decline to admit some of the
+items charged; more particularly that of having &quot;gone out of my way&quot;
+to attack the Bible; and I as steadfastly deny that &quot;hatred of
+Christianity&quot; is a feeling with which I have any acquaintance. There
+are very few things which I find it permissible to hate; and though,
+it may be, that some of the organisations, which arrogate to
+themselves the Christian name, have richly earned a place in the
+category of hateful things, that ought to have nothing to do with
+one's estimation of the religion, which they have perverted and
+disfigured out of all likeness to the original.</p>
+
+<p>The simple fact is that, as I have already more than once hinted, my
+story is that of the wolf and the lamb over again. I have never &quot;gone
+out of my way&quot; to attack the Bible, or anything else: it was the
+dominant ecclesiasticism of my early days, which, as I believe,
+without any warrant from the Bible itself, thrust the book in my way.</p>
+
+<p>I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of
+exploring a certain province of natural knowledge; I strayed no hair's
+breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue;
+and yet I found that, whatever <!-- Page 8 -->route I took, before long, I came to a
+tall and formidable-looking fence. Confident as I might be in the
+existence of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood
+the thorny barrier with its comminatory notice-board&mdash;&quot;No
+Thoroughfare. By order. Moses.&quot; There seemed no way over; nor did the
+prospect of creeping round, as I saw some do, attract me. True there
+was no longer any cause to fear the spring guns and man-traps set by
+former lords of the manor; but one is apt to get very dirty going on
+all-fours. The only alternatives were either to give up my
+journey&mdash;which I was not minded to do&mdash;or to break the fence down and
+go through it.</p>
+
+<p>Now I was and am, by nature, a law-abiding person, ready and willing
+to submit to all legitimate authority. But I also had and have a
+rooted conviction, that reasonable assurance of the legitimacy should
+precede the submission; so I made it my business to look up the
+manorial title-deeds. The pretensions of the ecclesiastical &quot;Moses&quot; to
+exercise a control over the operations of the reasoning faculty in the
+search after truth, thirty centuries after his age, might be
+justifiable; but, assuredly, the credentials produced in justification
+of claims so large required careful scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>Singular discoveries rewarded my industry. The ecclesiastical &quot;Moses&quot;
+proved to be a mere traditional mask, behind which, no doubt, lay the
+features of the historical Moses&mdash;just as many a <!-- Page 9 -->medi&aelig;val fresco has
+been hidden by the whitewash of Georgian churchwardens. And as the
+&aelig;sthetic rector too often scrapes away the defacement, only to find
+blurred, parti-coloured patches, in which the original design is no
+longer to be traced; so, when the successive layers of Jewish and
+Christian traditional pigment, laid on, at intervals, for near three
+thousand years, had been removed, by even the tenderest critical
+operations, there was not much to be discerned of the leader of the
+Exodus.</p>
+
+<p>Only one point became perfectly clear to me, namely, that Moses is not
+responsible for nine-tenths of the Pentateuch; certainly not for the
+legends which had been made the bugbears of science. In fact, the
+fence turned out to be a mere heap of dry sticks and brushwood, and
+one might walk through it with impunity: the which I did. But I was
+still young, when I thus ventured to assert my liberty; and young
+people are apt to be filled with a kind of <i>s�va indignatio</i>, when
+they discover the wide discrepancies between things as they seem and
+things as they are. It hurts their vanity to feel that they have
+prepared themselves for a mighty struggle to climb over, or break
+their way through, a rampart, which turns out, on close approach, to
+be a mere heap of ruins; venerable, indeed, and arch&aelig;ologically
+interesting, but of no other moment. And some fragment of the
+superfluous energy accumulated is apt to find vent in strong language.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 10 -->Such, I suppose, was my case, when I wrote some passages which occur
+in an essay reprinted among &quot;Darwiniana.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2" ></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> But when, not long ago
+&quot;the voice&quot; put it to me, whether I had better not expunge, or modify,
+these passages; whether, really, they were not a little too strong; I
+had to reply, with all deference, that while, from a merely literary
+point of view, I might admit them to be rather crude, I must stand by
+the substance of these items of my expenditure. I further ventured to
+express the conviction that scientific criticism of the Old Testament,
+since 1860, has justified every word of the estimate of the authority
+of the ecclesiastical &quot;Moses&quot; written at that time. And, carried away
+by the heat of self-justification, I even ventured to add, that the
+desperate attempt now set afoot to force biblical and post-biblical
+mythology into elementary instruction, renders it useful and necessary
+to go on making a considerable outlay in the same direction. Not yet,
+has &quot;the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew&quot; ceased to be the
+&quot;incubus of the philosopher, and the opprobrium of the orthodox;&quot; not
+yet, has &quot;the zeal of the Bibliolater&quot; ceased from troubling; not yet,
+are the weaker sort, even of the instructed, at rest from their
+fruitless toil &quot;to harmonise impossibilities,&quot; and &quot;to force the
+generous new wine of science into the old bottles of Judaism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 11 -->But I am aware that the head and front of my offending lies not now
+where it formerly lay. Thirty years ago, criticism of &quot;Moses&quot; was held
+by most respectable people to be deadly sin; now it has sunk to the
+rank of a mere peccadillo; at least, if it stops short of the history
+of Abraham. Destroy the foundation of most forms of dogmatic
+Christianity contained in the second chapter of Genesis, if you will;
+the new ecclesiasticism undertakes to underpin the superstructure and
+make it, at any rate to the eye, as firm as ever: but let him be
+anathema who applies exactly the same canons of criticism to the
+opening chapters of &quot;Matthew&quot; or of &quot;Luke.&quot; School-children may be
+told that the world was by no means made in six days, and that
+implicit belief in the story of Noah's Ark is permissible only, as a
+matter of business, to their toy-makers; but they are to hold for the
+certainest of truths, to be doubted only at peril of their salvation,
+that their Galilean fellow-child Jesus, nineteen centuries ago, had no
+human father.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Well, we will pass the item of 1860, said &quot;the voice.&quot; But why all
+this more recent coil about the Gadarene swine and the like? Do you
+pretend that these poor animals got in your way, years and years after
+the &quot;Mosaic&quot; fences were down, at any rate so far as you are
+concerned?</p>
+
+<p>Got in my way? Why, my good &quot;voice,&quot; they were driven in my way. I had
+happened to <!-- Page 12 -->make a statement, than which, so far as I have ever been
+able to see, nothing can be more modest or inoffensive; to wit, that I
+am convinced of my own utter ignorance about a great number of things,
+respecting which the great majority of my neighbours (not only those
+of adult years, but children repeating their catechisms) affirm
+themselves to possess full information. I ask any candid and impartial
+judge, Is that attacking anybody or anything?</p>
+
+<p>Yet, if I had made the most wanton and arrogant onslaught on the
+honest convictions of other people, I could not have been more hardly
+dealt with. The pentecostal charism, I believe, exhausted itself
+amongst the earliest disciples. Yet any one who has had to attend, as
+I have done, to copious objurgations, strewn with such appellations as
+&quot;infidel&quot; and &quot;coward,&quot; must be a hardened sceptic indeed if he doubts
+the existence of a &quot;gift of tongues&quot; in the Churches of our time;
+unless, indeed, it should occur to him that some of these outpourings
+may have taken place after &quot;the third hour of the day.&quot; I am far from
+thinking that it is worth while to give much attention to these
+inevitable incidents of all controversies, in which one party has
+acquired the mental peculiarities which are generated by the habit of
+much talking, with immunity from criticism. But as a rule, they are
+the sauce of dishes of misrepresentations and inaccuracies which <!-- Page 13 -->it
+may be a duty, nay, even an innocent pleasure, to expose. In the
+particular case of which I am thinking, I felt, as Strauss says, &quot;able
+and called upon&quot; to undertake the business: and it is no
+responsibility of mine, if I found the Gospels, with their miraculous
+stories, of which the Gadarene is a typical example, blocking my way,
+as heretofore, the Pentateuch had done.</p>
+
+<p>I was challenged to question the authority for the theory of &quot;the
+spiritual world,&quot; and the practical consequences deducible from human
+relations to it, contained in these documents.</p>
+
+<p>In my judgment, the actuality of this spiritual world&mdash;the value of
+the evidence for its objective existence and its influence upon the
+course of things&mdash;are matters, which lie as much within the province
+of science, as any other question about the existence and powers of
+the varied forms of living and conscious activity.</p>
+
+<p>It really is my strong conviction that a man has no more right to say
+he believes this world is haunted by swarms of evil spirits, without
+being able to produce satisfactory evidence of the fact, than he has a
+right to say, without adducing adequate proof, that the circumpolar
+antarctic ice swarms with sea-serpents. I should not like to assert
+positively that it does not. I imagine that no cautious biologist
+would say as much; but while quite open to conviction, he might
+properly decline to waste time upon the consideration <!-- Page 14 -->of talk, no
+better accredited than forecastle &quot;yarns,&quot; about such monsters of the
+deep. And if the interests of ordinary veracity dictate this course,
+in relation to a matter of so little consequence as this, what must be
+our obligations in respect of the treatment of a question which is
+fundamental alike for science and for ethics? For not only does our
+general theory of the universe and of the nature of the order which
+pervades it, hang upon the answer; but the rules of practical life
+must be deeply affected by it.</p>
+
+<p>The belief in a demonic world is inculcated throughout the Gospels and
+the rest of the books of the New Testament; it pervades the whole
+patristic literature; it colours the theory and the practice of every
+Christian church down to modern times. Indeed, I doubt if, even now,
+there is any church which, officially, departs from such a fundamental
+doctrine of primitive Christianity as the existence, in addition to
+the Cosmos with which natural knowledge is conversant, of a world of
+spirits; that is to say, of intelligent agents, not subject to the
+physical or mental limitations of humanity, but nevertheless competent
+to interfere, to an undefined extent, with the ordinary course of both
+physical and mental phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>More especially is this conception fundamental for the authors of the
+Gospels. Without the belief that the present world, and particularly
+that part of it which is constituted by human society, has <!-- Page 15 -->been given
+over, since the Fall, to the influence of wicked and malignant
+spiritual beings, governed and directed by a supreme devil&mdash;the moral
+antithesis and enemy of the supreme God&mdash;their theory of salvation by
+the Messiah falls to pieces. &quot;To this end was the Son of God
+manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3" ></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>The half-hearted religiosity of latter-day Christianity may choose to
+ignore the fact; but it remains none the less true, that he who
+refuses to accept the demonology of the Gospels rejects the revelation
+of a spiritual world, made in them, as much as if he denied the
+existence of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth; and deserves, as much
+as any one can do, to be ear-marked &quot;infidel&quot; by our gentle shepherds.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Now that which I thought it desirable to make perfectly clear, on my
+own account, and for the sake of those who find their capacity of
+belief in the Gospel theory of the universe failing them, is the fact,
+that, in my judgment, the demonology of primitive Christianity is
+totally devoid of foundation; and that no man, who is guided by the
+rules of investigation which are found to lead to the discovery of
+truth in other matters, not merely of science, but in the everyday
+affairs of life, will arrive at any other conclusion. To those <!-- Page 16 -->who
+profess to be otherwise guided, I have nothing to say; but to beg them
+to go their own way and leave me to mine.</p>
+
+<p>I think it may be as well to repeat what I have said, over and over
+again, elsewhere, that <i>a priori</i> notions, about the possibility, or
+the impossibility, of the existence of a world of spirits, such as
+that presupposed by genuine Christianity, have no influence on my
+mind. The question for me is purely one of evidence: is the evidence
+adequate to bear out the theory, or is it not? In my judgment it is
+not only inadequate, but quite absurdly insufficient. And on that
+ground, I should feel compelled to reject the theory; even if there
+were no positive grounds for adopting a totally different conception
+of the Cosmos.</p>
+
+<p>For most people, the question of the evidence of the existence of a
+demonic world, in the long run, resolves itself into that of the
+trustworthiness of the Gospels; first, as to the objective truth of
+that which they narrate on this topic; second, as to the accuracy of
+the interpretation which their authors put upon these objective facts.
+For example, with respect to the Gadarene miracle, it is one question
+whether, at a certain time and place, a raving madman became sane, and
+a herd of swine rushed into the lake of Tiberias; and quite another,
+whether the cause of these occurrences was the transmigration of
+certain devils from the man into the pigs. And again, it is one
+<!-- Page 17 -->question whether Jesus made a long oration on a certain occasion,
+mentioned in the first Gospel; altogether another, whether more or
+fewer of the propositions contained in the &quot;Sermon on the Mount&quot; were
+uttered on that occasion. One may give an affirmative answer to one of
+each of these pairs of questions and a negative to the other: one may
+affirm all, or deny all.</p>
+
+<p>In considering the historical value of any four documents, proof when
+they were written and who wrote them is, no doubt, highly important.
+For if proof exists, that A B C and D wrote them, and that they were
+intelligent persons, writing independently and without prejudice,
+about facts within their own knowledge&mdash;their statements must needs be
+worthy of the most attentive consideration.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4" ></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But, even
+ecclesiastical tradition does not assert that either &quot;Mark&quot; or &quot;Luke&quot;
+wrote from his own knowledge&mdash;indeed &quot;Luke&quot; expressly asserts he did
+not. I cannot discover that any competent authority now maintains that
+the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel which passes under his name. And
+whether the apostle John had, or had not, anything to do with the
+fourth Gospel; and if he had, what his share amounted to; are, as
+everybody who has attended to these <!-- Page 18 -->matters knows, questions still
+hotly disputed, and with regard to which the extant evidence can
+hardly carry an impartial judge beyond the admission of a possibility
+this way or that.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, nothing but a balancing of very dubious probabilities is to be
+attained by approaching the question from this side. It is otherwise
+if we make the documents tell their own story: if we study them, as we
+study fossils, to discover internal evidence, of when they arose, and
+how they have come to be. That really fruitful line of inquiry has led
+to the statement and the discussion of what is known as the <i>Synoptic
+Problem</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In the Essays (VII.&mdash;XI.) which deal with the consequences of the
+application of the agnostic principle to Christian Evidences,
+contained in this volume, there are several references to the results
+of the attempts which have been made, during the last hundred years,
+to solve this problem. And, though it has been clearly stated and
+discussed, in works accessible to, and intelligible by, every English
+reader,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5" ></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> it may be well that I should here set forth a very brief
+exposition of the matters of fact out of which the problem has arisen;
+and of some consequences, which, as I conceive, must be admitted if
+the facts are accepted.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 19 -->These undisputed and, apparently, indisputable data may be thus
+stated:</p>
+
+<p>I. The three books of which an ancient, but very questionable,
+ecclesiastical tradition asserts Matthew, Mark, and Luke to be the
+authors, agree, not only in presenting the same general view, or
+<i>Synopsis</i>, of the nature and the order of the events narrated; but,
+to a remarkable extent, the very words which they employ coincide.</p>
+
+<p>II. Nevertheless, there are many equally marked, and some
+irreconcilable, differences between them. Narratives, verbally
+identical in some portions, diverge more or less in others. The order
+in which they occur in one, or in two, Gospels may be changed in
+another. In &quot;Matthew&quot; and in &quot;Luke&quot; events of great importance make
+their appearance, where the story of &quot;Mark&quot; seems to leave no place
+for them; and, at the beginning and the end of the two former Gospels,
+there is a great amount of matter of which there is no trace in
+&quot;Mark.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>III. Obvious and highly important differences, in style and substance,
+separate the three &quot;Synoptics,&quot; taken together, from the fourth
+Gospel, connected, by ecclesiastical tradition, with the name of the
+apostle John. In its philosophical proemium; in the conspicuous
+absence of exorcistic miracles; in the self-assertive theosophy of the
+long and diffuse monologues, which are so utterly <!-- Page 20 -->unlike the brief
+and pregnant utterances of Jesus recorded in the Synoptics; in the
+assertion that the crucifixion took place before the Passover, which
+involves the denial, by implication, of the truth of the Synoptic
+story&mdash;to mention only a few particulars&mdash;the &quot;Johannine&quot; Gospel
+presents a wide divergence from the other three.</p>
+
+<p>IV. If the mutual resemblances and differences of the Synoptic Gospels
+are closely considered, a curious result comes out; namely, that each
+may be analyzed into four components. The <i>first</i> of these consists of
+passages, to a greater or less extent verbally identical, which occur
+in all three Gospels. If this triple tradition is separated from the
+rest it will be found to comprise:</p>
+
+<p><i>a</i>. A narrative, of a somewhat broken and anecdotic aspect, which
+covers the period from the appearance of John the Baptist to the
+discovery of the emptiness of the tomb, on the first day of the week,
+some six-and-thirty hours after the crucifixion.</p>
+
+<p><i>b</i>. An apocalyptic address.</p>
+
+<p><i>c</i>. Parables and brief discourses, or rather, centos of religious and
+ethical exhortations and injunctions.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>second</i> and the <i>third</i> set of components of each Gospel present
+equally close resemblances to passages, which are found in only one of
+the other Gospels; therefore it may be said that, for them, the
+tradition is double. The <i>fourth</i> component <!-- Page 21 -->is peculiar to each
+Gospel; it is a single tradition and has no representative in the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>To put the facts in another way: each Gospel is composed of a
+<i>threefold tradition</i>, two <i>twofold traditions</i>, and one <i>peculiar
+tradition</i>. If the Gospels were the work of totally independent
+writers, it would follow that there are three witnesses for the
+statements in the first tradition; two for each of those in the
+second, and only one for those in the third.</p>
+
+<p>V. If the reader will now take up that extremely instructive little
+book, Abbott and Rushbrooke's &quot;Common Tradition&quot; he will easily
+satisfy himself that &quot;Mark&quot; has the remarkable structure just
+described. Almost the whole of this Gospel consists of the first
+component; namely, the <i>threefold tradition</i>. But in chap. i. 23-28 he
+will discover an exorcistic story, not to be found in &quot;Matthew,&quot; but
+repeated, often word for word, in &quot;Luke.&quot; This, therefore, belongs to
+one of the <i>twofold traditions</i>. In chap. viii. 1-10, on the other
+hand, there is a detailed account of the miracle of feeding the four
+thousand; which is closely repeated in &quot;Matthew&quot; xv. 32-39, but is not
+to be found in &quot;Luke.&quot; This is an example of the other <i>twofold
+tradition</i>, possible in &quot;Mark.&quot; Finally, the story of the blind man of
+Bethsaida, &quot;Mark&quot; viii. 22-26, is <i>peculiar</i> to &quot;Mark.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>VI. Suppose that, A standing for the <i>threefold</i><!-- Page 22 --> <i>tradition</i>, or the
+matter common to all three Gospels; we call the matter common to
+&quot;Mark&quot; and &quot;Matthew&quot; only&mdash;B; that common to &quot;Mark&quot; and &quot;Luke&quot;
+only&mdash;C; that common to &quot;Matthew&quot; and &quot;Luke&quot; only&mdash;D; while the
+peculiar components of &quot;Mark,&quot; &quot;Matthew,&quot; and &quot;Luke&quot; are severally
+indicated by E, F, G; then the structure of the Gospels may be
+represented thus:</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="">
+<colgroup span="4" align="center"></colgroup>
+<tr><td>Components of</td><td>&quot;Mark&quot;</td><td> = A + B + C + E.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">&quot;</td><td>&quot;Matthew&quot;</td><td> = A + B + D + F.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center">&quot;</td><td>&quot;Luke&quot;</td><td> = A + C + D + G.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>VII. The analysis of the Synoptic documents need be carried no further
+than this point, in order to suggest one extremely important, and,
+apparently unavoidable conclusion; and that is, that their authors
+were neither three independent witnesses of the things narrated; nor,
+for the parts of the narrative about which all agree, that is to say,
+the <i>threefold tradition</i>, did they employ independent sources of
+information. It is simply incredible that each of three independent
+witnesses of any series of occurrences should tell a story so similar,
+not only in arrangement and in small details, but in words, to that of
+each of the others.</p>
+
+<p>Hence it follows, either that the Synoptic writers have, mediately or
+immediately, copied one from the other: or that the three have drawn
+from a common source; that is to say, from one <!-- Page 23 -->arrangement of similar
+traditions (whether oral or written); though that arrangement may have
+been extant in three or more, somewhat different versions.</p>
+
+<p>VIII. The suppositions (<i>a</i>) that &quot;Mark&quot; had &quot;Matthew&quot; and &quot;Luke&quot;
+before him; and (<i>b</i>) that either of the two latter was acquainted
+with the work of the other, would seem to involve some singular
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p><i>a</i>. The second Gospel is saturated with the lowest supernaturalism.
+Jesus is exhibited as a wonder-worker and exorcist of the first rank.
+The earliest public recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus comes from
+an &quot;unclean spirit&quot;; he himself is made to testify to the occurrence
+of the miraculous feeding twice over.</p>
+
+<p>The purpose with which &quot;Mark&quot; sets out is to show forth Jesus as the
+Son of God, and it is suggested, if not distinctly stated, that he
+acquired this character at his baptism by John. The absence of any
+reference to the miraculous events of the infancy, detailed by
+&quot;Matthew&quot; and &quot;Luke;&quot; or to the appearances after the discovery of the
+emptiness of the tomb; is unintelligible, if &quot;Mark&quot; knew anything
+about them, or believed in the miraculous conception. The second
+Gospel is no summary: &quot;Mark&quot; can find room for the detailed story,
+irrelevant to his main purpose, of the beheading of John the Baptist,
+and his miraculous narrations are crowded with minute <!-- Page 24 -->particulars. Is
+it to be imagined that, with the supposed apostolic authority of
+Matthew before him, he could leave out the miraculous conception of
+Jesus and the ascension? Further, ecclesiastical tradition would have
+us believe that Mark wrote down his recollections of what Peter
+taught. Did Peter then omit to mention these matters? Did the fact
+testified by the oldest authority extant, that the first appearance of
+the risen Jesus was to himself seem not worth mentioning? Did he
+really fail to speak of the great position in the Church solemnly
+assigned to him by Jesus? The alternative would seem to be the
+impeachment either of Mark's memory, or of his judgment. But Mark's
+memory, is so good that he can recollect how, on the occasion of the
+stilling of the waves, Jesus was asleep &quot;on the cushion,&quot; he remembers
+that the woman with the issue had &quot;spent all she had&quot; on her
+physicians; that there was not room &quot;even about the door&quot; on a certain
+occasion at Capernaum. And it is surely hard to believe that &quot;Mark&quot;
+should have failed to recollect occurrences of infinitely greater
+moment, or that he should have deliberately left them out, as things
+not worthy of mention.</p>
+
+<p><i>b</i>. The supposition that &quot;Matthew&quot; was acquainted with &quot;Luke,&quot; or
+&quot;Luke&quot; with &quot;Matthew&quot; has equally grave implications. If that be so,
+the one who used the other could have had but a poor opinion of his
+predecessor's historical <!-- Page 25 -->veracity. If, as most experts agree, &quot;Luke&quot;
+is later than &quot;Matthew,&quot; it is clear that he does not credit
+&quot;Matthew's&quot; account of the infancy; does not believe the &quot;Sermon on
+the Mount&quot; as given by Matthew was preached; does not believe in the
+two feeding miracles, to which Jesus himself is made to refer; wholly
+discredits &quot;Matthew's&quot; account of the events after the crucifixion;
+and thinks it not worth while to notice &quot;Matthew's&quot; grave admission
+that &quot;some doubted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>IX. None of these troublesome consequences pursue the hypothesis that
+the <i>threefold tradition</i>, in one, or more, Greek versions, was extant
+before either of the canonical Synoptic Gospels; and that it furnished
+the fundamental framework of their several narratives. Where and when
+the threefold narrative arose, there is no positive evidence; though
+it is obviously probable that the traditions it embodies, and perhaps
+many others, took their rise in Palestine and spread thence to Asia
+Minor, Greece, Egypt and Italy, in the track of the early
+missionaries. Nor is it less likely that they formed part of the
+&quot;didaskalia&quot; of the primitive Nazarene and Christian communities.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6" ></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 26 -->X. The interest which attaches to &quot;Mark&quot; arises from the fact that it
+seems to present this early, probably earliest, Greek Gospel
+narrative, with least addition, or modification. If, as appears likely
+from some internal evidences, it was compiled for the use of the
+Christian sodalities in Rome; and that it was accepted by them as an
+adequate account of the life and work of Jesus, it is evidence of the
+most valuable kind respecting their beliefs and the limits of dogma,
+as conceived by them.</p>
+
+<p>In such case, a good Roman Christian of that epoch might know nothing
+of the doctrine of the incarnation, as taught by &quot;Matthew&quot; and &quot;Luke&quot;;
+still less of the &quot;logos&quot; doctrine of &quot;John&quot;; neither need he have
+believed anything more than the simple fact of the resurrection. It
+was open to him to believe it either corporeal or spiritual. He would
+never have heard of the power of the keys bestowed upon Peter; nor
+have had brought to his mind so much as a suggestion of trinitarian
+doctrine. He might be a rigidly monotheistic Jud&aelig;o-Christian, and
+consider himself bound by the law: he might be a Gentile Pauline
+convert, neither knowing of nor caring for such restrictions. In
+neither case would he find in &quot;Mark&quot; any serious stumbling-block. In
+fact, persons of all the categories admitted to salvation by Justin,
+in the middle of the second century,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7" ></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> could accept &quot;<!-- Page 27 -->Mark&quot; from
+beginning to end. It may well be, that, in this wide adaptability,
+backed by the authority of the metropolitan church, there lies the
+reason for the fact of the preservation of &quot;Mark,&quot; notwithstanding its
+limited and dogmatically colourless character, as compared with the
+Gospels of &quot;Luke&quot; and &quot;Matthew.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>XI. &quot;Mark,&quot; as we have seen, contains a relatively small body of
+ethical and religious instruction and only a few parables. Were these
+all that existed in the primitive threefold tradition? Were none
+others current in the Roman communities, at the time &quot;Mark&quot; wrote,
+supposing he wrote in Rome? Or, on the other hand, was there extant,
+as early as the time at which &quot;Mark&quot; composed his Greek edition of the
+primitive Evangel, one or more collections of parables and teachings,
+such as those which form the bulk of the twofold tradition, common
+exclusively to &quot;Matthew&quot; and &quot;Luke,&quot; and are also found in their
+single traditions? Many have assumed this, or these, collections to be
+identical with, or at any rate based upon, the &quot;logia,&quot; of which
+ecclesiastical tradition says, that they were written in Aramaic by
+Matthew, and that everybody translated them as he could.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the old difficulty again. If such materials were known to
+&quot;Mark,&quot; what imaginable reason could he have for not using them?
+Surely displacement of the long episode of John the Baptist&mdash;even
+<!-- Page 28 -->perhaps of the story of the Gadarene swine&mdash;by portions of the Sermon
+on the Mount or by one or two of the beautiful parables in the twofold
+and single traditions would have been great improvements; and might
+have been effected, even though &quot;Mark&quot; was as much pressed for space
+as some have imagined. But there is no ground for that imagination;
+Mark has actually found room for four or five parables; why should he
+not have given the best, if he had known of them? Admitting he was the
+mere <i>pedissequus et breviator</i> of Matthew, that even Augustine
+supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the Lord's Prayer?</p>
+
+<p>Whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition D, and
+of the peculiar traditions F and G, were or were not current in some
+of the communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple
+tradition, it is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider
+those solutions of the Synoptic problem which assume that it existed
+earlier, and was already combined with more or less narrative. Those
+who are working out the final solution of the Synoptic problem are
+taking into account, more than hitherto, the possibility that the
+widely separated Christian communities of Palestine, Asia Minor,
+Egypt, and Italy, especially after the Jewish war of A.D. 66-70, may
+have found themselves in possession of very different traditional
+materials. Many circumstances <!-- Page 29 -->tend to the conclusion that, in Asia
+Minor, even the narrative part of the threefold tradition had a
+formidable rival; and that, around this second narrative, teaching
+traditions of a totally different order from those in the Synoptics,
+grouped themselves; and, under the influence of converts imbued more
+or less with the philosophical speculations of the time, eventually
+took shape in the fourth Gospel and its associated literature.</p>
+
+<p>XII. But it is unnecessary, and it would be out of place, for me to
+attempt to do more than indicate the existence of these complex and
+difficult questions. My purpose has been to make it clear that the
+Synoptic problem must force itself upon every one who studies the
+Gospels with attention; that the broad facts of the case, and some of
+the consequences deducible from these facts, are just as plain to the
+simple English reader as they are to the profoundest scholar.</p>
+
+<p>One of these consequences is that the threefold tradition presents us
+with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its
+particulars, by the major part, if not the whole, of the Christian
+communities. That narrative is penetrated, from beginning to end, by
+the demonological beliefs of which the Gadarene story is a specimen;
+and, if the fourth Gospel indicates the existence of another and, in
+some respects, irreconcilably divergent narrative, in which the
+demonology retires into the background, it is none the less there.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 30 -->Therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of
+primitive Christianity. The farther back the origin of the gospels is
+dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and
+the more difficult it becomes to suppose that Jesus himself may not
+have shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples.</p>
+
+<p>It further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and
+exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual
+world may consistently consider the testimony of the Gospels to be
+unimpeachable in respect of the information they give us respecting
+other matters which appertain to that world.</p>
+
+<p>Those who reject the gospel demonology, on the other hand, would seem
+to be as completely barred, as I feel myself to be, from professing to
+take the accuracy of that information for granted. If the threefold
+tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about
+another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually
+contradictory as they are, becomes a vanishing quantity.</p>
+
+<p>It really is unreasonable to ask any rejector of the demonology to say
+more with respect to those other matters, than that the statements
+regarding them may be true, or may be false; and that the ultimate
+decision, if it is to be favourable, must depend on the production of
+testimony of a very different character from that of the writers of
+the <!-- Page 31 -->four gospels. Until such evidence is brought forward, that
+refusal of assent, with willingness to re-open the question, on cause
+shown, which is what I mean by Agnosticism, is, for me, the only
+course open.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A verdict of &quot;not proven&quot; is undoubtedly unsatisfactory and
+essentially provisional, so far forth as the subject of the trial is
+capable of being dealt with by due process of reason.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are of opinion that the historical realities at the root of
+Christianity, lie beyond the jurisdiction of science, need not be
+considered. Those who are convinced that the evidence is, and must
+always remain, insufficient to support any definite conclusion, are
+justified in ignoring the subject. They must be content to put up with
+that reproach of being mere destroyers, of which Strauss speaks. They
+may say that there are so many problems which are and must remain
+insoluble, that the &quot;burden of the mystery&quot; &quot;of all this
+unintelligible world&quot; is not appreciably affected by one more or less.</p>
+
+<p>For myself, I must confess that the problem of the origin of such very
+remarkable historical phenomena as the doctrines, and the social
+organization, which in their broad features certainly existed, and
+were in a state of rapid development, within a hundred years of the
+crucifixion of Jesus; and which have steadily prevailed <!-- Page 32 -->against all
+rivals, among the most intelligent and civilized nations in the world
+ever since, is, and always has been, profoundly interesting; and,
+considering how recent the really scientific study of that problem,
+and how great the progress made during the last half century in
+supplying the conditions for a positive solution of the problem, I
+cannot doubt that the attainment of such a solution is a mere question
+of time.</p>
+
+<p>I am well aware that it has lain far beyond my powers to take any
+share in this great undertaking. All that I can hope is to have done
+somewhat towards &quot;the preparation of those who have ceased to be
+contented with the old and find no satisfaction in half measures&quot;:
+perhaps, also, something towards the lessening of that great
+proportion of my countrymen, whose eminent characteristic it is that
+they find &quot;full satisfaction in half measures.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="right">T.H.H.</p>
+<p>HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>December 4th, 1893</i>.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> D.F. Strauss, <i>Der alte und der neue Glaube</i> (1872), pp.
+9, 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Collected Essays</i>, vol. ii., &quot;On the Origin of Species&quot;
+(1860).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> 1 John iii. 8.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Not necessarily of more than this. A few centuries ago
+the twelve most intelligent and impartial men to be found in England,
+would have independently testified that the sun moves, from east to
+west, across the heavens every day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Nowhere more concisely and clearly than in Dr. Sutherland
+Black's article &quot;Gospels&quot; in Chambers's <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia</i>. References are
+given to the more elaborate discussions of the problem.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Those who regard the Apocalyptic discourse as a
+&quot;vaticination after the event&quot; may draw conclusions therefrom as to
+the date of the Gospels in which its several forms occur. But the
+assumption is surely dangerous, from an apologetic point of view,
+since it begs the question as to the unhistorical character of this
+solemn prophecy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See p. 287 of this volume.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="I" id="I" ></a><!-- Page 35 -->I</h2>
+
+<h3>PROLOGUE</h3>
+
+<h4>[<i>Controverted Questions</i>, 1892]</h4>
+
+
+<p>Le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre &agrave; la science est d'y faire
+place nette avant d'y rien construire.&mdash;CUVIER.</p>
+
+
+<p>Most of the Essays comprised in the present volume have been written
+during the last six or seven years, without premeditated purpose or
+intentional connection, in reply to attacks upon doctrines which I
+hold to be well founded; or in refutation of allegations respecting
+matters lying within the province of natural knowledge, which I
+believe to be erroneous; and they bear the mark of their origin in the
+controversial tone which pervades them.</p>
+
+<p>Of polemical writing, as of other kinds of warfare, I think it may be
+said, that it is often useful, sometimes necessary, and always more or
+less of an evil. It is useful, when it attracts attention to topics
+which might otherwise be neglected; and when, as does sometimes
+happen, those who come to see a contest remain to think. It is
+necessary, <!-- Page 36 -->when the interests of truth and of justice are at stake.
+It is an evil, in so far as controversy always tends to degenerate
+into quarrelling, to swerve from the great issue of what is right and
+what is wrong to the very small question of who is right and who is
+wrong. I venture to hope that the useful and the necessary were more
+conspicuous than the evil attributes of literary militancy, when these
+papers were first published; but I have had some hesitation about
+reprinting them. If I may judge by my own taste, few literary dishes
+are less appetising than cold controversy; moreover, there is an air
+of unfairness about the presentation of only one side of a discussion,
+and a flavour of unkindness in the reproduction of &quot;winged words,&quot;
+which, however appropriate at the time of their utterance, would find
+a still more appropriate place in oblivion. Yet, since I could hardly
+ask those who have honoured me by their polemical attentions to confer
+lustre on this collection, by permitting me to present their
+lucubrations along with my own; and since it would be a manifest wrong
+to them to deprive their, by no means rare, vivacities of language of
+such justification as they may derive from similar freedoms on my
+part; I came to the conclusion that my best course was to leave the
+essays just as they were written;<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8" ></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> assuring my <!-- Page 37 -->honourable
+adversaries that any heat of which signs may remain was generated, in
+accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, by the force of
+their own blows, and has long since been dissipated into space.</p>
+
+<p>But, however the polemical coincomitants of these discussions may be
+regarded&mdash;or better, disregarded&mdash;there is no doubt either about the
+importance of the topics of which they treat, or as to the public
+interest in the &quot;Controverted Questions&quot; with which they deal. Or
+rather, the Controverted Question; for disconnected as these pieces
+may, perhaps, appear to be, they are, in fact, concerned only with
+different aspects of a single problem, with which thinking men have
+been occupied, ever since they began seriously to consider the
+wonderful frame of things in which their lives are set, and to seek
+for trustworthy guidance among its intricacies.</p>
+
+<p>Experience speedily taught them that the shifting scenes of the
+world's stage have a permanent background; that there is order amidst
+the seeming confusion, and that many events take place according to
+unchanging rules. To this region of familiar steadiness and customary
+regularity they gave the name of Nature. But, at the same time, their
+infantile and untutored reason, little more, as yet, than the
+playfellow of the imagination, led them to believe that this tangible,
+commonplace, orderly world of Nature was surrounded <!-- Page 38 -->and
+interpenetrated by another intangible and mysterious world, no more
+bound by fixed rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and
+passions which coursed through their minds and seemed to exercise an
+intermittent and capricious rule over their bodies. They attributed to
+the entities, with which they peopled this dim and dreadful region, an
+unlimited amount of that power of modifying the course of events of
+which they themselves possessed a small share, and thus came to regard
+them as not merely beyond, but above, Nature.</p>
+
+<p>Hence arose the conception of a &quot;Supernature&quot; antithetic to
+&quot;Nature&quot;&mdash;the primitive dualism of a natural world &quot;fixed in fate&quot; and
+a supernatural, left to the free play of volition&mdash;which has pervaded
+all later speculation and, for thousands of years, has exercised a
+profound influence on practice. For it is obvious that, on this theory
+of the Universe, the successful conduct of life must demand careful
+attention to both worlds; and, if either is to be neglected, it may be
+safer that it should be Nature. In any given contingency, it must
+doubtless be desirable to know what may be expected to happen in the
+ordinary course of things; but it must be quite as necessary to have
+some inkling of the line likely to be taken by supernatural agencies
+able, and possibly willing, to suspend or reverse that course. Indeed,
+logically developed, the dualistic theory <!-- Page 39 -->must needs end in almost
+exclusive attention to Supernature, and in trust that its overruling
+strength will be exerted in favour of those who stand well with its
+denizens. On the other hand, the lessons of the great schoolmaster,
+experience, have hardly seemed to accord with this conclusion. They
+have taught, with considerable emphasis, that it does not answer to
+neglect Nature; and that, on the whole, the more attention paid to her
+dictates the better men fare.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the theoretical antithesis brought about a practical antagonism.
+From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, Naturalism and
+Supernaturalism have consciously, or unconsciously, competed and
+struggled with one another; and the varying fortunes of the contest
+are written in the records of the course of civilisation, from those
+of Egypt and Babylonia, six thousand years ago, down to those of our
+own time and people.</p>
+
+<p>These records inform us that, so far as men have paid attention to
+Nature, they have been rewarded for their pains. They have developed
+the Arts which have furnished the conditions of civilised existence;
+and the Sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality
+and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of
+discovering truth. They have accumulated a vast body of universally
+accepted knowledge; and the conceptions of man and of society, of
+morals and of law, based upon that knowledge, <!-- Page 40 -->are every day more and
+more, either openly or tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of
+right action.</p>
+
+<p>History also tells us that the field of the supernatural has rewarded
+its cultivators with a harvest, perhaps not less luxuriant, but of a
+different character. It has produced an almost infinite diversity of
+Religions. These, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which
+natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about
+Supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of
+their relations with Nature, and of the operations by which their
+interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or
+averted. It does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have
+attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history
+indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice,
+with the onward flow of time. On the contrary, the various religions
+are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents
+delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with
+criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity. In
+singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of
+mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more
+exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon conduct the
+greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of
+civilisation <!-- Page 41 -->submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there
+would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural
+knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in
+trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and
+questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of
+action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or
+vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Whether this difference of the fortunes of Naturalism and of
+Supernaturalism is an indication of the progress, or of the regress,
+of humanity; of a fall from, or an advance towards, the higher life;
+is a matter of opinion. The point to which I wish to direct attention
+is that the difference exists and is making itself felt. Men are
+growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the historical
+evolution of humanity, which is generally, and I venture to think not
+unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being,
+accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its
+originally large occupation of men's thoughts. The question&mdash;How far
+is this process to go?&mdash;is, in my apprehension, the Controverted
+Question of our time.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Controversy on this matter&mdash;prolonged, bitter, and fought out with the
+weapons of the flesh, as well as with those of the spirit&mdash;is no new
+thing <!-- Page 42 -->to Englishmen. We have been more or less occupied with it these
+five hundred years. And, during that time, we have made attempts to
+establish a <i>modus vivendi</i> between the antagonists, some of which
+have had a world-wide influence; though, unfortunately, none have
+proved universally and permanently satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>In the fourteenth century, the controverted question among us was,
+whether certain portions of the Supernaturalism of medi&aelig;val
+Christianity were well-founded. John Wicliff proposed a solution of
+the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years,
+acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards,
+Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and
+Anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal
+to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits
+sanctioned by the Scriptures. None of the chiefs of Protestantism
+called in question either the supernatural origin and infallible
+authority of the Bible, or the exactitude of the account of the
+supernatural world given in its pages. In fact, they could not afford
+to entertain any doubt about these points, since the infallible Bible
+was the fulcrum of the lever with which they were endeavouring to
+upset the Chair of St. Peter. The &quot;freedom of private judgment&quot; which
+they proclaimed, meant no more, in practice, than permission to
+themselves to make free with the public <!-- Page 43 -->judgment of the Roman Church,
+in respect of the canon and of the meaning to be attached to the words
+of the canonical books. Private judgment&mdash;that is to say, reason&mdash;was
+(theoretically, at any rate) at liberty to decide what books were and
+what were not to take the rank of &quot;Scripture&quot;; and to determine the
+sense of any passage in such books. But this sense, once ascertained
+to the mind of the sectary, was to be taken for pure truth&mdash;for the
+very word of God. The controversial efficiency of the principle of
+biblical infallibility lay in the fact that the conservative
+adversaries of the Reformers were not in a position to contravene it
+without entangling themselves in serious difficulties; while, since
+both Papists and Protestants agreed in taking efficient measures to
+stop the mouths of any more radical critics, these did not count.</p>
+
+<p>The impotence of their adversaries, however, did not remove the
+inherent weakness of the position of the Protestants. The dogma of the
+infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the
+infallibility of the Pope. If the former is held by &quot;faith,&quot; then the
+latter may be. If the latter is to be accepted, or rejected, by
+private judgment, why not the former? Even if the Bible could be
+proved anywhere to assert its own infallibility, the value of that
+self-assertion to those who dispute the point is not obvious. On the
+other hand, if the infallibility of the Bible <!-- Page 44 -->was rested on that of a
+&quot;primitive Church,&quot; the admission that the &quot;Church&quot; was formerly
+infallible was awkward in the extreme for those who denied its present
+infallibility. Moreover, no sooner was the Protestant principle
+applied to practice, than it became evident that even an infallible
+text, when manipulated by private judgment, will impartially
+countenance contradictory deductions; and furnish forth creeds and
+confessions as diverse as the quality and the information of the
+intellects which exercise, and the prejudices and passions which sway,
+such judgments. Every sect, confident in the derivative infallibility
+of its wire-drawing of infallible materials, was ready to supply its
+contingent of martyrs; and to enable history, once more, to illustrate
+the truth, that steadfastness under persecution says much for the
+sincerity and still more for the tenacity, of the believer, but very
+little for the objective truth of that which he believes. No martyrs
+have sealed their faith with their blood more steadfastly than the
+Anabaptists.</p>
+
+<p>Last, but not least, the Protestant principle contained within itself
+the germs of the destruction of the finality, which the Lutheran,
+Calvinistic, and other Protestant Churches fondly imagined they had
+reached. Since their creeds were professedly based on the canonical
+Scriptures, it followed that, in the long run, whoso settled <!-- Page 45 -->the
+canon defined the creed. If the private judgment of Luther might
+legitimately conclude that the epistle of James was contemptible,
+while the epistles of Paul contained the very essence of Christianity,
+it must be permissible for some other private judgment, on as good or
+as bad grounds, to reverse these conclusions; the critical process
+which excluded the Apocrypha could not be barred, at any rate by
+people who rejected the authority of the Church, from extending its
+operations to Daniel, the Canticles, and Ecclesiastes; nor, having got
+so far, was it easy to allege any good ground for staying the further
+progress of criticism. In fact, the logical development of
+Protestantism could not fail to lay the authority of the Scriptures at
+the feet of Reason; and, in the hands of latitudinarian and
+rationalistic theologians, the despotism of the Bible was rapidly
+converted into an extremely limited monarchy. Treated with as much
+respect as ever, the sphere of its practical authority was minimised;
+and its decrees were valid only so far as they were countersigned by
+common sense, the responsible minister.</p>
+
+<p>The champions of Protestantism are much given to glorify the
+Reformation of the sixteenth century as the emancipation of Reason;
+but it may be doubted if their contention has any solid ground; while
+there is a good deal of evidence to show, that aspirations after
+intellectual freedom <!-- Page 46 -->had nothing whatever to do with the movement.
+Dante, who struck the Papacy as hard blows as Wicliff; Wicliff himself
+and Luther himself, when they began their work; were far enough from
+any intention of meddling with even the most irrational of the dogmas
+of medi&aelig;val Supernaturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to
+M&uuml;nzer, Rothmann, and John of Leyden, I fail to find a trace of any
+desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a
+proposal to change masters. From being the slave of the Papacy the
+intellect was to become the serf of the Bible; or, to speak more
+accurately, of somebody's interpretation of the Bible, which, rapidly
+shifting its attitude from the humility of a private judgment to the
+arrogant C&aelig;saro-papistry of a state-enforced creed, had no more
+hesitation about forcibly extinguishing opponent private judgments and
+judges, than had the old-fashioned Pontiff-papistry.</p>
+
+<p>It was the iniquities, and not the irrationalities, of the Papal
+system that lay at the bottom of the revolt of the laity; which was,
+essentially, an attempt to shake off the intolerable burden of certain
+practical deductions from a Supernaturalism in which everybody, in
+principle, acquiesced. What was the gain to intellectual freedom of
+abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, indulgences,
+ecclesiastical infallibility; if consubstantiation, real-unreal
+presence mystifications, <!-- Page 47 -->the bibliolatry, the &quot;inner-light&quot;
+pretensions, and the demonology, which are fruits of the same
+supernaturalistic tree, remained in enjoyment of the spiritual and
+temporal support of a new infallibility? One does not free a prisoner
+by merely scraping away the rust from his shackles.</p>
+
+<p>It will be asked, perhaps, was not the Reformation one of the products
+of that great outbreak of many-sided free mental activity included
+under the general head of the Renascence? Melanchthon, Ulrich von
+Hutten, Beza, were they not all humanists? Was not the arch-humanist,
+Erasmus, fautor-in-chief of the Reformation, until he got frightened
+and basely deserted it?</p>
+
+<p>From the language of Protestant historians, it would seem that they
+often forget that Reformation and Protestantism are by no means
+convertible terms. There were plenty of sincere and indeed zealous
+reformers, before, during, and after the birth and growth of
+Protestantism, who would have nothing to do with it. Assuredly, the
+rejuvenescence of science and of art; the widening of the field of
+Nature by geographical and astronomical discovery; the revelation of
+the noble ideals of antique literature by the revival of classical
+learning; the stir of thought, throughout all classes of society, by
+the printers' work, loosened traditional bonds and weakened the hold
+of medi&aelig;val Supernaturalism. In the interests of liberal culture and
+of national welfare, the <!-- Page 48 -->humanists were eager to lend a hand to
+anything which tended to the discomfiture of their sworn enemies, the
+monks, and they willingly supported every movement in the direction of
+weakening ecclesiastical interference with civil life. But the bond of
+a common enemy was the only real tie between the humanist and the
+protestant; their alliance was bound to be of short duration, and,
+sooner or later, to be replaced by internecine warfare. The goal of
+the humanists, whether they were aware of it or not, was the
+attainment of the complete intellectual freedom of the antique
+philosopher, than which nothing could be more abhorrent to a Luther, a
+Calvin, a Beza, or a Zwingli.</p>
+
+<p>The key to the comprehension of the conduct of Erasmus, seems to me to
+lie in the clear apprehension of this fact. That he was a man of many
+weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and
+professed himself no hero. But he never deserted that reformatory
+movement which he originally contemplated; and it was impossible he
+should have deserted the specifically Protestant reformation in which
+he never took part. He was essentially a theological whig, to whom
+radicalism was as hateful as it is to all whigs; or, to borrow a still
+more appropriate comparison from modern times, a broad churchman who
+refused to enlist with either the High Church or the Low Church
+zealots, and paid the <!-- Page 49 -->penalty of being called coward, time-server and
+traitor, by both. Yet really there is a good deal in his pathetic
+remonstrance that he does not see why he is bound to become a martyr
+for that in which he does not believe; and a fair consideration of the
+circumstances and the consequences of the Protestant reformation seems
+to me to go a long way towards justifying the course he adopted.</p>
+
+<p>Few men had better means of being acquainted with the condition of
+Europe; none could be more competent to gauge the intellectual
+shallowness and self-contradiction of the Protestant criticism of
+Catholic doctrine; and to estimate, at its proper value, the fond
+imagination that the waters let out by the Renascence would come to
+rest amidst the blind alleys of the new ecclesiasticism. The bastard,
+whilom poor student and monk, become the familiar of bishops and
+princes, at home in all grades of society, could not fail to be aware
+of the gravity of the social position, of the dangers imminent from
+the profligacy and indifference of the ruling classes, no less than
+from the anarchical tendencies of the people who groaned under their
+oppression. The wanderer who had lived in Germany, in France, in
+England, in Italy, and who counted many of the best and most
+influential men in each country among his friends, was not likely to
+estimate wrongly the enormous forces which were still at the command
+of the Papacy. Bad as the churchmen might be, the <!-- Page 50 -->statesmen were
+worse; and a person of far more sanguine temperament than Erasmus
+might have seen no hope for the future, except in gradually freeing
+the ubiquitous organisation of the Church from the corruptions which
+alone, as he imagined, prevented it from being as beneficent as it was
+powerful. The broad tolerance of the scholar and man of the world
+might well be revolted by the ruffianism, however genial, of one great
+light of Protestantism, and the narrow fanaticism, however learned and
+logical, of others; and to a cautious thinker, by whom, whatever his
+shortcomings, the ethical ideal of the Christian evangel was sincerely
+prized, it really was a fair question, whether it was worth while to
+bring about a political and social deluge, the end of which no mortal
+could foresee, for the purpose of setting up Lutheran, Zwinglian, and
+other Peterkins, in the place of the actual claimant to the reversion
+of the spiritual wealth of the Galilean fisherman.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that, at the beginning of the Lutheran and Zwinglian
+movement, a vision of its immediate consequences had been granted to
+Erasmus; imagine that to the spectre of the fierce outbreak of
+Anabaptist communism, which opened the apocalypse, had succeeded, in
+shadowy procession, the reign of terror and of spoliation in England,
+with the judicial murders of his friends, More and Fisher; the bitter
+tyranny of evangelistic clericalism in Geneva and in Scotland; the
+<!-- Page 51 -->long agony of religious wars, persecutions, and massacres, which
+devastated France and reduced Germany almost to savagery; finishing
+with the spectacle of Lutheranism in its native country sunk into mere
+dead Erastian formalism, before it was a century old; while Jesuitry
+triumphed over Protestantism in three-fourths of Europe, bringing in
+its train a recrudescence of all the corruptions Erasmus and his
+friends sought to abolish; might not he have quite honestly thought
+this a somewhat too heavy price to pay for Protestantism; more
+especially, since no one was in a better position than himself to know
+how little the dogmatic foundation of the new confessions was able to
+bear the light which the inevitable progress of humanistic criticism
+would throw upon them? As the wiser of his contemporaries saw, Erasmus
+was, at heart, neither Protestant nor Papist, but an &quot;Independent
+Christian&quot;; and, as the wiser of his modern biographers have
+discerned, he was the precursor, not of sixteenth century reform, but
+of eighteenth century &quot;enlightenment&quot;; a sort of broad-church
+Voltaire, who held by his &quot;Independent Christianity&quot; as stoutly as
+Voltaire by his Deism.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the stream of the Renascence, which bore Erasmus along, left
+Protestantism stranded amidst the mudbanks of its articles and creeds:
+while its true course became visible to all men, two centuries later.
+By this time, those in whom <!-- Page 52 -->the movement of the Renascence was
+incarnate became aware what spirit they were of; and they attacked
+Supernaturalism in its Biblical stronghold, defended by Protestants
+and Romanists with equal zeal. In the eyes of the &quot;Patriarch,&quot;
+Ultramontanism, Jansenism, and Calvinism were merely three persons of
+the one &quot;Inf&acirc;me&quot; which it was the object of his life to crush. If he
+hated one more than another, it was probably the last; while
+D'Holbach, and the extreme left of the free-thinking host, were
+disposed to show no more mercy to Deism and Pantheism.</p>
+
+<p>The sceptical insurrection of the eighteenth century made a terrific
+noise and frightened not a few worthy people out of their wits; but
+cool judges might have foreseen, at the outset, that the efforts of
+the later rebels were no more likely than those of the earlier, to
+furnish permanent resting-places for the spirit of scientific inquiry.
+However worthy of admiration may be the acuteness, the common sense,
+the wit, the broad humanity, which abound in the writings of the best
+of the free-thinkers; there is rarely much to be said for their work
+as an example of the adequate treatment of a grave and difficult
+investigation. I do not think any impartial judge will assert that,
+from this point of view, they are much better than their adversaries.
+It must be admitted that they share to the full the fatal weakness of
+<i>a priori</i> philosophising, no less than <!-- Page 53 -->the moral frivolity common to
+their age; while a singular want of appreciation of history, as the
+record of the moral and social evolution of the human race, permitted
+them to resort to preposterous theories of imposture, in order to
+account for the religious phenomena which are natural products of that
+evolution.</p>
+
+<p>For the most part, the Romanist and Protestant adversaries of the
+free-thinkers met them with arguments no better than their own; and
+with vituperation, so far inferior that it lacked the wit. But one
+great Christian Apologist fairly captured the guns of the
+free-thinking array, and turned their batteries upon themselves.
+Speculative &quot;infidelity&quot; of the eighteenth century type was mortally
+wounded by the <i>Analogy</i>; while the progress of the historical and
+psychological sciences brought to light the important part played by
+the mythop&oelig;ic faculty; and, by demonstrating the extreme readiness of
+men to impose upon themselves, rendered the calling in of sacerdotal
+cooperation, in most cases, a superfluity.</p>
+
+<p>Again, as in the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries, social and
+political influences came into play. The free-thinking <i>philosophes</i>,
+who objected to Rousseau's sentimental religiosity almost as much as
+they did to <i>L'Inf&acirc;me</i>, were credited with the responsibility for all
+the evil deeds of Rousseau's Jacobin disciples, with about as much
+justification as Wicliff was held responsible for the<!-- Page 54 --> Peasants'
+revolt, or Luther for the <i>Bauern-krieg</i>. In England, though our
+<i>ancien r&eacute;gime</i> was not altogether lovely, the social edifice was
+never in such a bad way as in France; it was still capable of being
+repaired; and our forefathers, very wisely, preferred to wait until
+that operation could be safely performed, rather than pull it all down
+about their ears, in order to build a philosophically planned house on
+brand-new speculative foundations. Under these circumstances, it is
+not wonderful that, in this country, practical men preferred the
+gospel of Wesley and Whitfield to that of Jean Jacques; while enough
+of the old leaven of Puritanism remained to ensure the favour and
+support of a large number of religious men to a revival of evangelical
+supernaturalism. Thus, by degrees, the free-thinking, or the
+indifference, prevalent among us in the first half of the eighteenth
+century, was replaced by a strong supernaturalistic reaction, which
+submerged the work of the free-thinkers; and even seemed, for a time,
+to have arrested the naturalistic movement of which that work was an
+imperfect indication. Yet, like Lollardry, four centuries earlier,
+free-thought merely took to running underground, safe, sooner or
+later, to return to the surface.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>My memory, unfortunately, carries me back to the fourth decade of the
+nineteenth century, when the evangelical flood had a little abated and
+the <!-- Page 55 -->tops of certain mountains were soon to appear, chiefly in the
+neighbourhood of Oxford; but when nevertheless, bibliolatry was
+rampant; when church and chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of
+God, the crude assumptions of the worst informed and, in natural
+sequence, the most presumptuously bigoted, of all theological schools.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with promises made on my behalf, but certainly without
+my authorisation, I was very early taken to hear &quot;sermons in the
+vulgar tongue.&quot; And vulgar enough often was the tongue in which some
+preacher, ignorant alike of literature, of history, of science, and
+even of theology, outside that patronised by his own narrow school,
+poured forth, from the safe entrenchment of the pulpit, invectives
+against those who deviated from his notion of orthodoxy. From dark
+allusions to &quot;sceptics&quot; and &quot;infidels,&quot; I became aware of the
+existence of people who trusted in carnal reason; who audaciously
+doubted that the world was made in six natural days, or that the
+deluge was universal; perhaps even went so far as to question the
+literal accuracy of the story of Eve's temptation, or of Balaam's ass;
+and, from the horror of the tones in which they were mentioned, I
+should have been justified in drawing the conclusion that these rash
+men belonged to the criminal classes. At the same time, those who were
+more directly responsible for providing me with the knowledge
+essential to the right guidance <!-- Page 56 -->of life (and who sincerely desired to
+do so), imagined they were discharging that most sacred duty by
+impressing upon my childish mind the necessity, on pain of reprobation
+in this world and damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict
+and literal sense, every statement contained in the Protestant Bible.
+I was told to believe, and I did believe, that doubt about any of them
+was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. I suppose that,
+out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred, at least, had
+their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the name of the God
+of truth, by like discipline. I am sure that, even a score of years
+later, those who ventured to question the exact historical accuracy of
+any part of the Old Testament and <i>a fortiori</i> of the Gospels, had to
+expect a pitiless shower of verbal missiles, to say nothing of the
+other disagreeable consequences which visit those who, in any way, run
+counter to that chaos of prejudices called public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>My recollections of this time have recently been revived by the
+perusal of a remarkable document,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9" ></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> signed by as many as thirty-eight
+out of the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the Established Church. It
+does not appear that the signataries are officially accredited
+spokesmen of the ecclesiastical corporation to which they belong; <!-- Page 57 -->but
+I feel bound to take their word for it, that they are &quot;stewards of the
+Lord, who have received the Holy Ghost,&quot; and, therefore, to accept
+this memorial as evidence that, though the Evangelicism of my early
+days may be deposed from its place of power, though so many of the
+colleagues of the thirty-eight even repudiate the title of
+Protestants, yet the green bay tree of bibliolatry flourishes as it
+did sixty years ago. And, as in those good old times, whoso refuses to
+offer incense to the idol is held to be guilty of &quot;a dishonour to
+God,&quot; imperilling his salvation.</p>
+
+<p>It is to the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that they
+discern the real nature of the Controverted Question of the age. They
+are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if Scripture has been
+discovered &quot;not to be worthy of unquestioning belief,&quot; faith &quot;in the
+supernatural itself&quot; is, so far, undermined. And I may congratulate
+myself upon such weighty confirmation of an opinion in which I have
+had the fortune to anticipate them. But whether it is more to the
+credit of the courage, than to the intelligence, of the thirty-eight
+that they should go on to proclaim that the canonical scriptures of
+the Old and New Testaments &quot;declare incontrovertibly the actual
+historical truth in all records, both of past events and of the
+delivery of predictions to be thereafter fulfilled,&quot; must be left to
+the coming generation to decide.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 58 -->The interest which attaches to this singular document will, I think,
+be based by most thinking men, not upon what it is, but upon that of
+which it is a sign. It is an open secret, that the memorial is put
+forth as a counterblast to a manifestation of opinion of a contrary
+character, on the part of certain members of the same ecclesiastical
+body, who therefore have, as I suppose, an equal right to declare
+themselves &quot;stewards of the Lord and recipients of the Holy Ghost.&quot; In
+fact, the stream of tendency towards Naturalism, the course of which I
+have briefly traced, has, of late years, flowed so strongly, that even
+the Churches have begun, I dare not say to drift, but, at any rate, to
+swing at their moorings. Within the pale of the Anglican
+establishment, I venture to doubt, whether, at this moment, there are
+as many thorough-going defenders of &quot;plenary inspiration&quot; as there
+were timid questioners of that doctrine, half a century ago.
+Commentaries, sanctioned by the highest authority, give up the &quot;actual
+historical truth&quot; of the cosmogonical and diluvial narratives.
+University professors of deservedly high repute accept the critical
+decision that the Hexateuch is a compilation, in which the share of
+Moses, either as author or as editor, is not quite so clearly
+demonstrable as it might be; highly placed Divines tell us that the
+pre-Abrahamic Scripture narratives may be ignored; that the book of
+Daniel may be regarded as a <!-- Page 59 -->patriotic romance of the second century
+B.C.; that the words of the writer of the fourth Gospel are not always
+to be distinguished from those which he puts into the mouth of Jesus.
+Conservative, but conscientious, revisers decide that whole passages,
+some of dogmatic and some of ethical importance, are interpolations.
+An uneasy sense of the weakness of the dogma of Biblical infallibility
+seems to be at the bottom of a prevailing tendency once more to
+substitute the authority of the &quot;Church&quot; for that of the Bible. In my
+old age, it has happened to me to be taken to task for regarding
+Christianity as a &quot;religion of a book&quot; as gravely as, in my youth, I
+should have been reprehended for doubting that proposition. It is a no
+less interesting symptom that the State Church seems more and more
+anxious to repudiate all complicity with the principles of the
+Protestant Reformation and to call itself &quot;Anglo-Catholic.&quot;
+Inspiration, deprived of its old intelligible sense, is watered down
+into a mystification. The Scriptures are, indeed, inspired; but they
+contain a wholly undefined and indefinable &quot;human element&quot;; and this
+unfortunate intruder is converted into a sort of biblical whipping
+boy. Whatsoever scientific investigation, historical or physical,
+proves to be erroneous, the &quot;human element&quot; bears the blame; while the
+divine inspiration of such statements, as by their nature are out of
+reach of proof or disproof, is <!-- Page 60 -->still asserted with all the vigour
+inspired by conscious safety from attack. Though the proposal to treat
+the Bible &quot;like any other book&quot; which caused so much scandal, forty
+years ago, may not yet be generally accepted, and though Bishop
+Colenso's criticisms may still lie, formally, under ecclesiastical
+ban, yet the Church has not wholly turned a deaf ear to the voice of
+the scientific tempter; and many a coy divine, while &quot;crying I will
+ne'er consent,&quot; has consented to the proposals of that scientific
+criticism which the memorialists renounce and denounce.</p>
+
+<p>A humble layman, to whom it would seem the height of presumption to
+assume even the unconsidered dignity of a &quot;steward of science,&quot; may
+well find this conflict of apparently equal ecclesiastical authorities
+perplexing&mdash;suggestive, indeed, of the wisdom of postponing attention
+to either, until the question of precedence between them is settled.
+And this course will probably appear the more advisable, the more
+closely the fundamental position of the memorialists is examined.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No opinion of the fact or form of Divine Revelation, founded on
+literary criticism [and I suppose I may add historical, or physical,
+criticism] of the Scriptures themselves, can be admitted to interfere
+with the traditionary testimony of the Church, when that has been once
+ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10" ></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 61 -->Grant that it is &quot;the traditionary testimony of the Church&quot; which
+guarantees the canonicity of each and all of the books of the Old and
+New Testaments. Grant also that canonicity means infallibility; yet,
+according to the thirty-eight, this &quot;traditionary testimony&quot; has to be
+&quot;ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity.&quot; But &quot;ascertainment
+and verification&quot; are purely intellectual processes, which must be
+conducted according to the strict rules of scientific investigation,
+or be self-convicted of worthlessness. Moreover, before we can set
+about the appeal to &quot;antiquity,&quot; the exact sense of that usefully
+vague term must be defined by similar means. &quot;Antiquity&quot; may include
+any number of centuries, great or small; and whether &quot;antiquity&quot; is to
+comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a little beyond that of
+Nic&aelig;a, or to come to an end in the time of Iren&aelig;nus, or in that of
+Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at all,
+only by those critical methods which the signataries treat so
+cavalierly. And yet the decision of these questions is fundamental,
+for as the limits of the canonical scriptures vary, so may the dogmas
+deduced from them require modification. Christianity is one thing, if
+the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the pastoral Epistles,
+and the Apocalypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) infallibly
+true; and another thing, if they are not.<!-- Page 62 --> As I have already said,
+whoso defines the canon defines the creed.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is quite certain with respect to some of these books, such as
+the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the Eastern and
+the Western Church differed in opinion for centuries; and yet neither
+the one branch nor the other can have considered its judgment
+infallible, since they eventually agreed to a transaction by which
+each gave up its objection to the book patronised by the other.
+Moreover, the &quot;fathers&quot; argue (in a more or less rational manner)
+about the canonicity of this or that book, and are by no means above
+producing evidence, internal and external, in favour of the opinions
+they advocate. In fact, imperfect as their conceptions of scientific
+method may be, they not unfrequently used it to the best of their
+ability. Thus it would appear that though science, like Nature, may be
+driven out with a fork, ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes
+back again. The appeal to &quot;antiquity&quot; is, in fact, an appeal to
+science, first to define what antiquity is; secondly, to determine
+what &quot;antiquity,&quot; so defined, says about canonicity; thirdly, to prove
+that canonicity means infallibility. And when science, largely in the
+shape of the abhorred &quot;criticism,&quot; has answered this appeal, and has
+shown that &quot;antiquity&quot; used her own methods, however clumsily and
+imperfectly, she naturally turns round upon the appellants, and
+demands <!-- Page 63 -->that they should show cause why, in these days, science
+should not resume the work the ancients did so imperfectly, and carry
+it out efficiently.</p>
+
+<p>But no such cause can be shown. If &quot;antiquity&quot; permitted Eusebius,
+Origen, Tertullian, Iren&aelig;us, to argue for the reception of this book
+into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational grounds,
+&quot;antiquity&quot; admitted the whole principle of modern criticism. If
+Iren&aelig;us produces ridiculous reasons for limiting the Gospels to four,
+it was open to any one else to produce good reasons (if he had them)
+for cutting them down to three, or increasing them to five. If the
+Eastern branch of the Church had a right to reject the Apocalypse and
+accept the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Western an equal right to
+accept the Apocalypse and reject the Epistle, down to the fourth
+century, any other branch would have an equal right, on cause shown,
+to reject both, or, as the Catholic Church afterwards actually did, to
+accept both.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I cannot but think that the thirty-eight are hoist with their own
+petard. Their &quot;appeal to antiquity&quot; turns out to be nothing but a
+round-about way of appealing to the tribunal, the jurisdiction of
+which they affect to deny. Having rested the world of Christian
+supernaturalism on the elephant of biblical infallibility, and
+furnished the elephant with standing ground on the tortoise <!-- Page 64 -->of
+&quot;antiquity,&quot; they, like their famous Hindoo analogue, have been
+content to look no further; and have thereby been spared the horror of
+discovering that the tortoise rests on a grievously fragile
+construction, to a great extent the work of that very intellectual
+operation which they anathematise and repudiate.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, there is another point to be considered. It is of course
+true that a Christian Church (whether the Christian Church, or not,
+depends on the connotation of the definite article) existed before the
+Christian scriptures; and that the infallibility of these depends upon
+the infallibility of the judgment of the persons who selected the
+books of which they are composed, out of the mass of literature
+current among the early Christians. The logical acumen of Augustine
+showed him that the authority of the Gospel he preached must rest on
+that of the Church to which he belonged.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11" ></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> But it is no less true
+that the Hebrew and the Septuagint versions of most, if not all, of
+the Old Testament books existed before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth;
+and that their divine authority is presupposed by, and therefore can
+hardly depend upon, the religious body constituted by his disciples.
+As everybody knows, the very conception of a &quot;Christ&quot; is purely
+Jewish. The validity <!-- Page 65 -->of the argument from the Messianic prophecies
+vanishes unless their infallible authority is granted; and, as a
+matter of fact, whether we turn to the Gospels, the Epistles, or the
+writings of the early Apologists, the Jewish scriptures are recognised
+as the highest court of appeal of the Christian.</p>
+
+<p>The proposal to cite Christian &quot;antiquity&quot; as a witness to the
+infallibility of the Old Testament, when its own claims to authority
+vanish, if certain propositions contained in the Old Testament are
+erroneous, hardly satisfies the requirements of lay logic. It is as if
+a claimant to be sole legatee, under another kind of testament, should
+offer his assertion as sufficient evidence of the validity of the
+will. And, even were not such a circular, or rather rotatory,
+argument, that the infallibility of the Bible is testified by the
+infallible Church, whose infallibility is testified by the infallible
+Bible, too absurd for serious consideration, it remains permissible to
+ask, Where and when the Church, during the period of its
+infallibility, as limited by Anglican dogmatic necessities, has
+officially decreed the &quot;actual historical truth of all records&quot; in the
+Old Testament? Was Augustine heretical when he denied the actual
+historical truth of the record of the Creation? Father Suarez,
+standing on later Roman tradition, may have a right to declare that he
+was; but it does not lie in the mouth of those who limit their <!-- Page 66 -->appeal
+to that early &quot;antiquity,&quot; in which Augustine played so great a part,
+to say so.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Among the watchers of the course of the world of thought, some view
+with delight and some with horror, the recrudescence of
+Supernaturalism which manifests itself among us, in shapes ranged
+along the whole flight of steps, which, in this case, separates the
+sublime from the ridiculous&mdash;from Neo-Catholicism and Inner-light
+mysticism, at the top, to unclean things, not worthy of mention in the
+same breath, at the bottom. In my poor opinion, the importance of
+these manifestations is often greatly over-estimated. The extant forms
+of Supernaturalism have deep roots in human nature, and will
+undoubtedly die hard; but, in these latter days, they have to cope
+with an enemy whose full strength is only just beginning to be put
+out, and whose forces, gathering strength year by year, are hemming
+them round on every side. This enemy is Science, in the acceptation of
+systematized natural knowledge, which, during the last two centuries,
+has extended those methods of investigation, the worth of which is
+confirmed by daily appeal to Nature, to every region in which the
+Supernatural has hitherto been recognised.</p>
+
+<p>When scientific historical criticism reduced the annals of heroic
+Greece and of regal Rome to the level of fables; when the unity of
+authorship of the <i>Iliad</i> was successfully assailed by scientific
+literary <!-- Page 67 -->criticism; when scientific physical criticism, after
+exploding the geocentric theory of the universe and reducing the solar
+system itself to one of millions of groups of like cosmic specks,
+circling, at unimaginable distances from one another through infinite
+space, showed the supernaturalistic theories of the duration of the
+earth and of life upon it, to be as inadequate as those of its
+relative dimensions and importance had been; it needed no prophetic
+gift to see that, sooner or later, the Jewish and the early Christian
+records would be treated in the same manner; that the authorship of
+the Hexateuch and of the Gospels would be as severely tested; and that
+the evidence in favour of the veracity of many of the statements found
+in the Scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be
+opposed to the conclusions of physical science. In point of fact, so
+far as I can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential
+strength of these conclusions, ventures now to say that the biblical
+accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural
+sense of the words of the narratives. The most modern Reconcilers
+venture upon is to affirm, that some quite different sense may he put
+upon the words; and that this non-natural sense may, with a little
+trouble, be manipulated into some sort of noncontradiction of
+scientific truth.</p>
+
+<p>My purpose, in the essay (XVI.) which treats of the narrative of the
+Deluge, was to prove, by <!-- Page 68 -->physical criticism, that no such event as
+that described ever took place; to exhibit the untrustworthy character
+of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism; and, finally, to
+account for its origin, by producing a form of those ancient legends
+of pagan Chald&aelig;a, from which the biblical compilation is manifestly
+derived. I have yet to learn that the main propositions of this essay
+can be seriously challenged.</p>
+
+<p>In the essays (II., III.) on the narrative of the Creation, I have
+endeavoured to controvert the assertion that modern science supports,
+either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or any
+interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the
+narrative, quite apart from particular details. The first chapter of
+Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of
+life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution.
+The first chapter of Genesis teaches the successive origin&mdash;firstly,
+of all the plants, secondly, of all the aquatic and aerial animals,
+thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals, which now exist&mdash;during
+distinct intervals of time; modern science teaches that, throughout
+all the duration of an immensely long past so far as we have any
+adequate knowledge of it (that is as far back as the Silurian epoch),
+plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals have co-existed; that
+the earliest known are unlike those which at present exist; and that
+the modern species have <!-- Page 69 -->come into existence as the last terms of a
+series, the members of which have appeared one after another. Thus,
+far from confirming the account in Genesis, the results of modern
+science, so far as they go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly
+discordant with it.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, if the pretensions to infallibility set up, not by the ancient
+Hebrew writings themselves, but by the ecclesiastical champions and
+friends from whom they may well pray to be delivered, thus shatter
+themselves against the rock of natural knowledge, in respect of the
+two most important of all events, the origin of things and the
+palingenesis of terrestrial life, what historical credit dare any
+serious thinker attach to the narratives of the fabrication of Eve, of
+the Fall, of the commerce between the <i>Bene Elohim</i> and the daughters
+of men, which lie between the creational and the diluvial legends?
+And, if these are to lose all historical worth, what becomes of the
+infallibility of those who, according to the later scriptures, have
+accepted them, argued from them, and staked far-reaching dogmatic
+conclusions upon their historical accuracy?</p>
+
+<p>It is the merest ostrich policy for contemporary ecclesiasticism to
+try to hide its Hexateuchal head&mdash;in the hope that the inseparable
+connection of its body with pre-Abrahamic legends may be overlooked.
+The question will still be asked, if the first nine chapters of the
+Pentateuch are <!-- Page 70 -->unhistorical, how is the historical accuracy of the
+remainder to be guaranteed? What more intrinsic claim has the story of
+the Exodus than that of the Deluge, to belief? If God did not walk in
+the Garden of Eden, how can we be assured that he spoke from Sinai?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In some other of the following essays (IX., X., XI., XII., XIV., XV.)
+I have endeavoured to show that sober and well-founded physical and
+literary criticism plays no less havoc with the doctrine that the
+canonical scriptures of the New Testament &quot;declare incontrovertibly
+the actual historical truth in all records.&quot; We are told that the
+Gospels contain a true revelation of the spiritual world&mdash;a
+proposition which, in one sense of the word &quot;spiritual,&quot; I should not
+think it necessary to dispute. But, when it is taken to signify that
+everything we are told about the world of spirits in these books is
+infallibly true; that we are bound to accept the demonology which
+constitutes an inseparable part of their teaching; and to profess
+belief in a Supernaturalism as gross as that of any primitive
+people&mdash;it is at any rate permissible to ask why? Science may be
+unable to define the limits of possibility, but it cannot escape from
+the moral obligation to weigh the evidence in favour of any alleged
+wonderful occurrence; and I have endeavoured to show that the evidence
+for the Gadarene miracle is <!-- Page 71 -->altogether worthless. We have simply
+three, partially discrepant, versions of a story, about the primitive
+form, the origin, and the authority for which we know absolutely
+nothing. But the evidence in favour of the Gadarene miracle is as good
+as that for any other.</p>
+
+<p>Elsewhere, I have pointed out that it is utterly beside the mark to
+declaim against these conclusions on the ground of their asserted
+tendency to deprive mankind of the consolations of the Christian
+faith, and to destroy the foundations of morality; still less to brand
+them with the question-begging vituperative appellation of
+&quot;infidelity.&quot; The point is not whether they are wicked; but, whether,
+from the point of view of scientific method, they are irrefragably
+true. If they are, they will be accepted in time, whether they are
+wicked, or not wicked. Nature, so far as we have been able to attain
+to any insight into her ways, recks little about consolation and makes
+for righteousness by very round-about paths. And, at any rate,
+whatever may be possible for other people, it is becoming less and
+less possible for the man who puts his faith in scientific methods of
+ascertaining truth, and is accustomed to have that faith justified by
+daily experience, to be consciously false to his principle in any
+matter. But the number of such men, driven into the use of scientific
+methods of inquiry and taught to trust them, by their education, their
+daily professional <!-- Page 72 -->and business needs, is increasing and will
+continually increase. The phraseology of Supernaturalism may remain on
+men's lips, but in practice they are Naturalists. The magistrate who
+listens with devout attention to the precept &quot;Thou shalt not suffer a
+witch to live&quot; on Sunday, on Monday, dismisses, as intrinsically
+absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against some old woman;
+the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for
+rational modes of treatment would have but a short tenure of office;
+even parish clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as
+the wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men, not
+to the churches, but to the drains. In spite of prayers for the
+success of our arms and <i>Te Deums</i> for victory, our real faith is in
+big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in knowledge of the science
+of warfare; in energy, courage, and discipline. In these, as in all
+other practical affairs, we act on the aphorism &quot;<i>Laborare est
+orare</i>&quot;; we admit that intelligent work is the only acceptable
+worship; and that, whether there be a Supernature or not, our business
+is with Nature.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It is important to note that the principle of the scientific
+Naturalism of the latter half of the nineteenth century, in which the
+intellectual movement of the Renascence has culminated, and which <!-- Page 73 -->was
+first clearly formulated by Descartes, leads not to the denial of the
+existence of any Supernature;<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12" ></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> but simply to the denial of the
+validity of the evidence adduced in favour of this, or of that, extant
+form of Supernaturalism.</p>
+
+<p>Looking at the matter from the most rigidly scientific point of view,
+the assumption that, amidst the myriads of worlds scattered through
+endless space, there can be no intelligence, as much greater than
+man's as his is greater than a blackbeetle's; no being endowed with
+powers of influencing the course of nature as much greater than his,
+as his is greater than a snail's seems to me not merely baseless, but
+impertinent. Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is
+known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending
+scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from
+omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. If our intelligence can,
+in some matters, surely reproduce the past of thousands of years ago
+and anticipate the future, thousands of years hence, it is clearly
+within the limits of possibility that some greater intellect, even of
+the same order, may be able to mirror the whole past and the whole
+future; if the universe <!-- Page 74 -->is penetrated by a medium of such a nature
+that a magnetic needle on the earth answers to a commotion in the sun,
+an omnipresent agent is also conceivable; if our insignificant
+knowledge gives us some influence over events, practical omniscience
+may confer indefinably greater power. Finally, if evidence that a
+thing may be, were equivalent to proof that it is, analogy might
+justify the construction of a naturalistic theology and demonology not
+less wonderful than the current supernatural; just as it might justify
+the peopling of Mars, or of Jupiter, with living forms to which
+terrestrial biology offers no parallel. Until human life is longer and
+the duties of the present press less heavily, I do not think that wise
+men will occupy themselves with Jovian, or Martian, natural history;
+and they will probably agree to a verdict of &quot;not proven&quot; in respect
+of naturalistic theology, taking refuge in that agnostic confession,
+which appears to me to be the only position for people who object to
+say that they know what they are quite aware they do not know. As to
+the interests of morality, I am disposed to think that if mankind
+could be got to act up to this last principle in every relation of
+life, a reformation would be effected such as the world has not yet
+seen; an approximation to the millennium, such as no supernaturalistic
+religion has ever yet succeeded, or seems likely ever to succeed, in
+effecting.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><!-- Page 75 -->I have hitherto dwelt upon scientific Naturalism chiefly in its
+critical and destructive aspect. But the present incarnation of the
+spirit of the Renascence differs from its predecessor in the
+eighteenth century, in that it builds up, as well as pulls down.</p>
+
+<p>That of which it has laid the foundation, of which it is already
+raising the superstructure, is the doctrine of evolution. But so many
+strange misconceptions are current about this doctrine&mdash;it is attacked
+on such false grounds by its enemies, and made to cover so much that
+is disputable by some of its friends, that I think it well to define
+as clearly as I can, what I do not and what I do understand by the
+doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>I have nothing to say to any &quot;Philosophy of Evolution.&quot; Attempts to
+construct such a philosophy may be as useful, nay, even as admirable,
+as was the attempt of Descartes to get at a theory of the universe by
+the same <i>a priori</i> road; but, in my judgment, they are as premature.
+Nor, for this purpose, have I to do with any theory of the &quot;Origin of
+Species,&quot; much as I value that which is known as the Darwinian theory.
+That the doctrine of natural selection presupposes evolution is quite
+true; but it is not true that evolution necessarily implies natural
+selection. In fact, evolution might conceivably have taken place
+without the development of groups possessing the characters of
+species.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 76 -->For me, the doctrine of evolution is no speculation, but a
+generalisation of certain facts, which may be observed by any one who
+will take the necessary trouble. These facts are those which are
+classed by biologists under the heads of Embryology and of
+Pal&aelig;ontology. Embryology proves that every higher form of individual
+life becomes what it is by a process of gradual differentiation from
+an extremely low form; pal&aelig;ontology proves, in some cases, and renders
+probable in all, that the oldest types of a group are the lowest; and
+that they have been followed by a gradual succession of more and more
+differentiated forms. It is simply a fact, that evolution of the
+individual animal and plant is taking place, as a natural process, in
+millions and millions of cases every day; it is a fact, that the
+species which have succeeded one another in the past, do, in many
+cases, present just those morphological relations, which they must
+possess, if they had proceeded, one from the other, by an analogous
+process of evolution.</p>
+
+<p>The alternative presented, therefore, is: either the forms of one and
+the same type&mdash;say, <i>e.g.</i>, that of the Horse tribe<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13" ></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>&mdash;arose
+successively, but independently of one another, at intervals, during
+myriads of years; or, the later forms are modified <!-- Page 77 -->descendants of the
+earlier. And the latter supposition is so vastly more probable than
+the former, that rational men will adopt it, unless satisfactory
+evidence to the contrary can be produced. The objection sometimes put
+forward, that no one yet professes to have seen one species pass into
+another, comes oddly from those who believe that mankind are all
+descended from Adam. Has any one then yet seen the production of
+negroes from a white stock, or <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>? Moreover, is it
+absolutely necessary to have watched every step of the progress of a
+planet, to be justified in concluding that it really does go round the
+sun? If so, astronomy is in a bad way.</p>
+
+<p>I do not, for a moment, presume to suggest that some one, far better
+acquainted than I am with astronomy and physics; or that a master of
+the new chemistry, with its extraordinary revelations; or that a
+student of the development of human society, of language, and of
+religions, may not find a sufficient foundation for the doctrine of
+evolution in these several regions. On the contrary, I rejoice to see
+that scientific investigation, in all directions, is tending to the
+same result. And it may well be, that it is only my long occupation
+with biological matters that leads me to feel safer among them than
+anywhere else. Be that as it may, I take my stand on the facts of
+embryology and of pal&aelig;ontology; and I hold that our present knowledge
+of these facts is sufficiently thorough <!-- Page 78 -->and extensive to justify the
+assertion that all future philosophical and theological speculations
+will have to accommodate themselves to some such common body of
+established truths as the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Plants and animals have existed on our planet for many hundred
+thousand, probably millions, of years. During this time, their forms,
+or species, have undergone a succession of changes, which eventually
+gave rise to the species which constitute the present living
+population of the earth. There is no evidence, nor any reason to
+suspect, that this secular process of evolution is other than a part
+of the ordinary course of nature; there is no more ground for
+imagining the occurrence of supernatural intervention, at any moment
+in the development of species in the past, than there is for supposing
+such intervention to take place, at any moment in the development of
+an individual animal or plant, at the present day.</p>
+
+<p>2. At present, every individual animal or plant commences its
+existence as an organism of extremely simple anatomical structure; and
+it acquires all the complexity it ultimately possesses by gradual
+differentiation into parts of various structure and function. When a
+series of specific forms of the same type, extending over a long
+period of past time, is examined, the relation between the earlier and
+the later forms is analogous to that between earlier and later stages
+of individual <!-- Page 79 -->development. Therefore, it is a probable conclusion
+that, if we could follow living beings back to their earlier states,
+we should find them to present forms similar to those of the
+individual germ, or, what comes to the same thing, of those lowest
+known organisms which stand upon the boundary line between plants and
+animals. At present, our knowledge of the ancient living world stops
+very far short of this point.</p>
+
+<p>3. It is generally agreed, and there is certainly no evidence to the
+contrary, that all plants are devoid of consciousness; that they
+neither feel, desire, nor think. It is conceivable that the evolution
+of the primordial living substance should have taken place only along
+the plant line. In that case, the result might have been a wealth of
+vegetable life, as great, perhaps as varied, as at present, though
+certainly widely different from the present flora, in the evolution of
+which animals have played so great a part. But the living world thus
+constituted would be simply an admirable piece of unconscious
+machinery, the working out of which lay potentially in its primitive
+composition; pleasure and pain would have no place in it; it would be
+a veritable Garden of Eden without any tree of the knowledge of good
+and evil. The question of the moral government of such a world could
+no more be asked, than we could reasonably seek for a moral purpose in
+a kaleidoscope.</p>
+
+<p>4. How far down the scale of animal life the <!-- Page 80 -->phenomena of
+consciousness are manifested, it is impossible to say. No one doubts
+their presence in his fellow-men; and, unless any strict Cartesians
+are left, no one doubts that mammals and birds are to be reckoned
+creatures that have feelings analogous to our smell, taste, sight,
+hearing, touch, pleasure, and pain. For my own part, I should be
+disposed to extend this analogical judgment a good deal further. On
+the other hand, if the lowest forms of plants are to be denied
+consciousness, I do not see on what ground it is to be ascribed to the
+lowest animals. I find it hard to believe that an infusory animalcule,
+a foraminifer, or a fresh-water polype is capable of feeling; and, in
+spite of Shakspere, I have doubts about the great sensitiveness of the
+&quot;poor beetle that we tread upon.&quot; The question is equally perplexing
+when we turn to the stages of development of the individual. Granted a
+fowl feels; that the chick just hatched feels; that the chick when it
+chirps within the egg may possibly feel; what is to be said of it on
+the fifth day, when the bird is there, but with all its tissues
+nascent? Still more, on the first day, when it is nothing but a flat
+cellular disk? I certainly cannot bring myself to believe that this
+disk feels. Yet if it does not, there must be some time in the three
+weeks, between the first day and the day of hatching, when, as a
+concomitant, or a consequence, of the attainment by the brain of the
+chick of a certain stage of <!-- Page 81 -->structural evolution, consciousness makes
+its appearance. I have frequently expressed my incapacity to
+understand the nature of the relation between consciousness and a
+certain anatomical tissue, which is thus established by observation.
+But the fact remains that, so far as observation and experiment go,
+they teach us that the psychical phenomena are dependent on the
+physical.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, if fishes, insects, scorpions, and such animals as the
+pearly nautilus, possess feeling, then undoubtedly consciousness was
+present in the world as far back as the Silurian epoch. But, if the
+earliest animals were similar to our rhizopods and monads, there must
+have been some time, between the much earlier epoch in which they
+constituted the whole animal population and the Silurian, in which
+feeling dawned, in consequence of the organism having reached the
+stage of evolution on which it depends.</p>
+
+<p>5. Consciousness has various forms, which may be manifested
+independently of one another. The feelings of light and colour, of
+sound, of touch, though so often associated with those of pleasure and
+pain, are, by nature, as entirely independent of them as is thinking.
+An animal devoid of the feelings of pleasure and of pain, may
+nevertheless exhibit all the effects of sensation and purposive
+action. Therefore, it would be a justifiable hypothesis that, long
+after organic <!-- Page 82 -->evolution had attained to consciousness, pleasure and
+pain were still absent. Such a world would be without either happiness
+or misery; no act could be punished and none could be rewarded; and it
+could have no moral purpose.</p>
+
+<p>6. Suppose, for argument's sake, that all mammals and birds are
+subjects of pleasure and pain. Then we may be certain that these forms
+of consciousness were in existence at the beginning of the Mesozoic
+epoch. From that time forth, pleasure has been distributed without
+reference to merit, and pain inflicted without reference to demerit,
+throughout all but a mere fraction of the higher animals. Moreover,
+the amount and the severity of the pain, no less than the variety and
+acuteness of the pleasure, have increased with every advance in the
+scale of evolution. As suffering came into the world, not in
+consequence of a fall, but of a rise, in the scale of being, so every
+further rise has brought more suffering. As the evidence stands it
+would appear that the sort of brain which characterizes the highest
+mammals and which, so far as we know, is the indispensable condition
+of the highest sensibility, did not come into existence before the
+Tertiary epoch. The primordial anthropoid was probably, in this
+respect, on much the same footing as his pithecoid kin. Like them he
+stood upon his &quot;natural rights,&quot; gratified all his desires to the best
+of his ability, and was as incapable of either right or <!-- Page 83 -->wrong doing
+as they. It would be as absurd as in their case, to regard his
+pleasures, any more than theirs, as moral rewards, and his pains, any
+more than theirs, as moral punishments.</p>
+
+<p>7. From the remotest ages of which we have any cognizance, death has
+been the natural and, apparently, the necessary concomitant of life.
+In our hypothetical world (3), inhabited by nothing but plants, death
+must have very early resulted from the struggle for existence: many of
+the crowd must have jostled one another out of the conditions on which
+life depends. The occurrence of death, as far back as we have any
+fossil record of life, however, needs not to be proved by such
+arguments; for, if there had been no death there would have been no
+fossil remains, such as the great majority of those we met with. Not
+only was there death in the world, as far as the record of life takes
+us; but, ever since mammals and birds have been preyed upon by
+carnivorous animals, there has been painful death, inflicted by
+mechanisms specially adapted for inflicting it.</p>
+
+<p>8. Those who are acquainted with the closeness of the structural
+relations between the human organisation and that of the mammals which
+come nearest to him, on the one hand; and with the pal&aelig;ontological
+history of such animals as horses and dogs, on the other; will not be
+disposed to question the origin of man from forms which stand in the
+same sort of relation to <i>Homo <!-- Page 84 -->sapiens</i>, as <i>Hipparion</i> does to
+<i>Equus</i>. I think it a conclusion, fully justified by analogy, that,
+sooner or later, we shall discover the remains of our less specialised
+primatic ancestors in the strata which have yielded the less
+specialised equine and canine quadrupeds. At present, fossil remains
+of men do not take us hack further than the later part of the
+Quaternary epoch; and, as was to be expected, they do not differ more
+from existing men, than Quaternary horses differ from existing horses.
+Still earlier we find traces of man, in implements, such as are used
+by the ruder savages at the present day. Later, the remains of the
+pal&aelig;olithic and neolithic conditions take us gradually from the savage
+state to the civilizations of Egypt and of Mycen&aelig;; though the true
+chronological order of the remains actually discovered may be
+uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>9. Much has yet to be learned, but, at present, natural knowledge
+affords no support to the notion that men have fallen from a higher to
+a lower state. On the contrary, everything points to a slow natural
+evolution; which, favoured by the surrounding conditions in such
+localities as the valleys of the Yang-tse-kang, the Euphrates, and the
+Nile, reached a relatively high pitch, five or six thousand years ago;
+while, in many other regions, the savage condition has persisted down
+to our day. In all this vast lapse of time there is not a trace of the
+occurrence of any general <!-- Page 85 -->destruction of the human race; not the
+smallest indication that man has been treated on any other principles
+than the rest of the animal world.</p>
+
+<p>10. The results of the process of evolution in the case of man, and in
+that of his more nearly allied contemporaries, have been marvellously
+different. Yet it is easy to see that small primitive differences of a
+certain order, must, in the long run, bring about a wide divergence of
+the human stock from the others. It is a reasonable supposition that,
+in the earliest human organisms, an improved brain, a voice more
+capable of modulation and articulation, limbs which lent themselves
+better to gesture, a more perfect hand, capable among other things of
+imitating form in plastic or other material, were combined with the
+curiosity, the mimetic tendency, the strong family affection of the
+next lower group; and that they were accompanied by exceptional length
+of life and a prolonged minority. The last two peculiarities are
+obviously calculated to strengthen the family organisation, and to
+give great weight to its educative influences. The potentiality of
+language, as the vocal symbol of thought, lay in the faculty of
+modulating and articulating the voice. The potentiality of writing, as
+the visual symbol of thought, lay in the hand that could draw; and in
+the mimetic tendency, which, as we know, was gratified by drawing, as
+far back as the <!-- Page 86 -->days of Quaternary man. With speech as the record, in
+tradition, of the experience of more than one generation; with writing
+as the record of that of any number of generations; the experience of
+the race, tested and corrected generation after generation, could be
+stored up and made the starting point for fresh progress. Having these
+perfectly natural factors of the evolutionary process in man before
+us, it seems unnecessary to go further a-field in search of others.</p>
+
+<p>11. That the doctrine of evolution implies a former state of innocence
+of mankind is quite true; but, as I have remarked, it is the innocence
+of the ape and of the tiger, whose acts, however they may run counter
+to the principles of morality, it would be absurd to blame. The lust
+of the one and the ferocity of the other are as much provided for in
+their organisation, are as clear evidences of design, as any other
+features that can be named.</p>
+
+<p>Observation and experiment upon the phenomena of society soon taught
+men that, in order to obtain the advantages of social existence,
+certain rules must be observed. Morality commenced with society.
+Society is possible only upon the condition that the members of it
+shall surrender more or less of their individual freedom of action. In
+primitive societies, individual selfishness is a centrifugal force of
+such intensity that it is <!-- Page 87 -->constantly bringing the social organisation
+to the verge of destruction. Hence the prominence of the positive
+rules of obedience to the elders; of standing by the family or the
+tribe in all emergencies; of fulfilling the religious rites,
+non-observance of which is conceived to damage it with the
+supernatural powers, belief in whose existence is one of the earliest
+products of human thought; and of the negative rules which restrain
+each from meddling with the life or property of another.</p>
+
+<p>12. The highest conceivable form of human society is that in which the
+desire to do what is best for the whole dominates and limits the
+action of every member of that society. The more complex the social
+organisation the greater the number of acts from which each man must
+abstain if he desires to do that which is best for all. Thus the
+progressive evolution of society means increasing restriction of
+individual freedom in certain directions.</p>
+
+<p>With the advance of civilisation, and the growth of cities and of
+nations by the coalescence of families and of tribes, the rules which
+constitute the common foundation of morality and of law became more
+numerous and complicated, and the temptations to break or evade many
+of them stronger. In the absence of a clear apprehension of the
+natural sanctions of these rules, a supernatural sanction was assumed;
+and imagination <!-- Page 88 -->supplied the motives which reason was supposed to be
+incompetent to furnish. Religion, at first independent of morality,
+gradually took morality under its protection; and the supernaturalists
+have ever since tried to persuade mankind that the existence of ethics
+is bound up with that of supernaturalism.</p>
+
+<p>I am not of that opinion. But, whether it is correct or otherwise, it
+is very clear to me that, as Beelzebub is not to be cast out by the
+aid of Beelzebub, so morality is not to be established by immorality.
+It is, we are told, the special peculiarity of the devil that he was a
+liar from the beginning. If we set out in life with pretending to know
+that which we do not know; with professing to accept for proof
+evidence which we are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shutting
+our eyes and our ears to facts which militate against this or that
+comfortable hypothesis; we are assuredly doing our best to deserve the
+same character.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I have not the presumption to imagine that, in spite of all my
+efforts, errors may not have crept into these propositions. But I am
+tolerably confident that time will prove them to be substantially
+correct. And if they are so, I confess I do not see how any extant
+supernaturalistic system can also claim exactness. That they are
+irreconcilable with the biblical cosmogony, <!-- Page 89 -->anthropology, and
+theodicy is obvious; but they are no less inconsistent with the
+sentimental Deism of the &quot;Vicaire Savoyard&quot; and his numerous modern
+progeny. It is as impossible, to my mind, to suppose that the
+evolutionary process was set going with full foreknowledge of the
+result and yet with what we should understand by a purely benevolent
+intention, as it is to imagine that the intention was purely
+malevolent. And the prevalence of dualistic theories from the earliest
+times to the present day&mdash;whether in the shape of the doctrine of the
+inherently evil nature of matter; of an Ahriman; of a hard and cruel
+Demiurge; of a diabolical &quot;prince of this world,&quot; show how widely this
+difficulty has been felt.</p>
+
+<p>Many seem to think that, when it is admitted that the ancient
+literature, contained in our Bibles, has no more claim to
+infallibility than any other ancient literature; when it is proved
+that the Israelites and their Christian successors accepted a great
+many supernaturalistic theories and legends which have no better
+foundation than those of heathenism, nothing remains to be done but to
+throw the Bible aside as so much waste paper.</p>
+
+<p>I have always opposed this opinion. It appears to me that if there is
+anybody more objectionable than the orthodox Bibliolater it is the
+heterodox Philistine, who can discover in a literature which, in some
+respects, has no superior, nothing but <!-- Page 90 -->a subject for scoffing and an
+occasion for the display of his conceited ignorance of the debt he
+owes to former generations.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-two years ago I pleaded for the use of the Bible as an
+instrument of popular education, and I venture to repeat what I then
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this
+book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in
+English history; that it has become the national Epic of Britain and
+is as familiar to gentle and simple, from John o' Groat's House to
+Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is
+written in the noblest and purest English and abounds in exquisite
+beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the
+veriest hind, who never left his village, to be ignorant of the
+existence of other countries and other civilisations and of a great
+past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in
+the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much
+humanised and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical
+procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the
+interval between the Eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses
+of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as
+they also are earning their payment for their work?&quot;<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 91 -->At the same time, I laid stress upon the necessity of placing such
+instruction in lay hands; in the hope and belief, that it would thus
+gradually accommodate itself to the coming changes of opinion; that
+the theology and the legend would drop more and more out of sight,
+while the perennially interesting historical, literary, and ethical
+contents would come more and more into view.</p>
+
+<p>I may add yet another claim of the Bible to the respect and the
+attention of a democratic age. Throughout the history of the western
+world, the Scriptures, Jewish and Christian, have been the great
+instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and
+political despotism. The Bible has been the <i>Magna Charta</i> of the poor
+and of the oppressed; down to modern times, no State has had a
+constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken
+into account, in which the duties, so much more than the privileges,
+of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in
+Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that
+the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness
+of the citizen so strongly laid down. Assuredly, the Bible talks no
+trash about the rights of man; but it insists on the equality of
+duties, on the liberty to bring about that righteousness which is
+somewhat different from struggling for &quot;rights&quot;; on the fraternity of
+taking thought for one's neighbour as for one's self.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 92 -->So far as such equality, liberty, and fraternity are included under
+the democratic principles which assume the same names, the Bible is
+the most democratic book in the world. As such it began, through the
+heretical sects, to undermine the clerico-political despotism of the
+middle ages, almost as soon as it was formed, in the eleventh century;
+Pope and King had as much as they could do to put down the Albigenses
+and the Waldenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the
+Lollards and the Hussites gave them still more trouble in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth; from the sixteenth century onward, the
+Protestant sects have favoured political freedom in proportion to the
+degree in which they have refused to acknowledge any ultimate
+authority save that of the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>But the enormous influence which has thus been exerted by the Jewish
+and Christian Scriptures has had no necessary connection with
+cosmogonies, demonologies, and miraculous interferences. Their
+strength lies in their appeals, not to the reason, but to the ethical
+sense. I do not say that even the highest biblical ideal is exclusive
+of others or needs no supplement. But I do believe that the human race
+is not yet, possibly may never be, in a position to dispense with it.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> With a few exceptions, which are duly noted when they
+amount to more than verbal corrections.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Declaration on the Truth of Holy Scripture.</i> The
+<i>Times</i>, 18th December, 1891.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>Declaration</i>, Article 10.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi ecclesi&aelig; Catholic&aelig;
+me commoveret auctoritas.&mdash;<i>Contra Epistolam Manich&aelig;i</i>, cap. v.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> I employ the words &quot;Supernature&quot; and &quot;Supernatural&quot; in
+their popular senses. For myself, I am bound to say that the term
+&quot;Nature&quot; covers the totality of that which is. The world of psychical
+phenomena appears to me to be as much part of &quot;Nature&quot; as the world of
+physical phenomena; and I am unable to perceive any justification for
+cutting the Universe into two halves, one natural and one
+supernatural.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The general reader will find an admirably clear and
+concise statement of the evidence in this case, in Professor Flower's
+recently published work <i>The Horse: a Study in Natural History</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> &quot;The School Boards: What they Can do and what they May
+do,&quot; 1870. <i>Critiques and Addresses</i>, p. 51.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II" ></a><!-- Page 93 -->II</h2>
+
+<h3>SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM</h3>
+
+<h4>[1887]</h4>
+
+
+<p>Next to undue precipitation in anticipating the results of pending
+investigations, the intellectual sin which is commonest and most
+hurtful to those who devote themselves to the increase of knowledge is
+the omission to profit by the experience of their predecessors
+recorded in the history of science and philosophy. It is true that, at
+the present day, there is more excuse than at any former time for such
+neglect. No small labour is needed to raise one's self to the level of
+the acquisitions already made; and able men, who have achieved thus
+much, know that, if they devote themselves body and soul to the
+increase of their store, and avoid looking back, with as much care as
+if the injunction laid on Lot and his family were binding upon them,
+such devotion is sure to be richly repaid by the joys of the
+discoverer and <!-- Page 94 -->the solace of fame, if not by rewards of a less
+elevated character.</p>
+
+<p>So, following the advice of Francis Bacon, we refuse <i>inter mortuos
+qu&aelig;rere vivum</i>; we leave the past to bury its dead, and ignore our
+intellectual ancestry. Nor are we content with that. We follow the
+evil example set us, not only by Bacon but by almost all the men of
+the Renaissance, in pouring scorn upon the work of our immediate
+spiritual forefathers, the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. It is
+accepted as a truth which is indisputable, that, for seven or eight
+centuries, a long succession of able men&mdash;some of them of transcendent
+acuteness and encyclop&aelig;dic knowledge&mdash;devoted laborious lives to the
+grave discussion of mere frivolities and the arduous pursuit of
+intellectual will-o'-the-wisps. To say nothing of a little modesty, a
+little impartial pondering over personal experience might suggest a
+doubt as to the adequacy of this short and easy method of dealing with
+a large chapter of the history of the human mind. Even an acquaintance
+with popular literature which had extended so far as to include that
+part of the contributions of Sam Slick which contains his weighty
+aphorism that &quot;there is a great deal of human nature in all mankind,&quot;
+might raise a doubt whether, after all, the men of that epoch, who,
+take them all round, were endowed with wisdom and folly in much the
+same proportion as ourselves, were likely to <!-- Page 95 -->display nothing better
+than the qualities of energetic idiots, when they devoted their
+faculties to the elucidation of problems which were to them, and
+indeed are to us, the most serious which life has to offer. Speaking
+for myself, the longer I live the more I am disposed to think that
+there is much less either of pure folly, or of pure wickedness, in the
+world than is commonly supposed. It may be doubted if any sane man
+ever said to himself, &quot;Evil, be thou my good,&quot; and I have never yet
+had the good fortune to meet with a perfect fool. When I have brought
+to the inquiry the patience and long-suffering which become a
+scientific investigator, the most promising specimens have turned out
+to have a good deal to say for themselves from their own point of
+view. And, sometimes, calm reflection has taught the humiliating
+lesson, that their point of view was not so different from my own as I
+had fondly imagined. Comprehension is more than half-way to sympathy,
+here as elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn our attention to scholastic philosophy in the frame of mind
+suggested by these prefatory remarks, it assumes a very different
+character from that which it bears in general estimation. No doubt it
+is surrounded by a dense thicket of thorny logomachies and obscured by
+the dust-clouds of a barbarous and perplexing terminology. But suppose
+that, undeterred by much grime and <!-- Page 96 -->by many scratches, the explorer
+has toiled through this jungle, he comes to an open country which is
+amazingly like his dear native land. The hills which he has to climb,
+the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same; there is the
+same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the unknown below;
+the means of travelling are the same, and the goal is the same.</p>
+
+<p>That goal for the schoolmen, as for us, is the settlement of the
+question how far the universe is the manifestation of a rational
+order; in other words, how far logical deduction from indisputable
+premisses will account for what which has happened and does happen.
+That was the object of scholasticism, and, so far as I am aware, the
+object of modern science may be expressed in the same terms. In
+pursuit of this end, modern science takes into account all the
+phenomena of the universe which are brought to our knowledge by
+observation or by experiment. It admits that there are two worlds to
+be considered, the one physical and the other psychical; and that
+though there is a most intimate relation and interconnection between
+the two, the bridge from one to the other has yet to be found; that
+their phenomena run, not in one series, but along two parallel lines.</p>
+
+<p>To the schoolmen the duality of the universe appeared under a
+different aspect. How this came about will not be intelligible unless
+we clearly apprehend the fact that they did really <!-- Page 97 -->believe in
+dogmatic Christianity as it was formulated by the Roman Church. They
+did not give a mere dull assent to anything the Church told them on
+Sundays, and ignore her teachings for the rest of the week; but they
+lived and moved and had their being in that supersensible theological
+world which was created, or rather grew up, during the first four
+centuries of our reckoning, and which occupied their thoughts far more
+than the sensible world in which their earthly lot was cast.</p>
+
+<p>For the most part, we learn history from the colourless compendiums or
+partisan briefs of mere scholars, who have too little acquaintance
+with practical life, and too little insight into speculative problems,
+to understand that about which they write. In historical science, as
+in all sciences which have to do with concrete phenomena, laboratory
+practice is indispensable; and the laboratory practice of historical
+science is afforded, on the one hand, by active social and political
+life, and, on the other, by the study of those tendencies and
+operations of the mind which embody themselves in philosophical and
+theological systems. Thucydides and Tacitus, and, to come nearer our
+own time, Hume and Grote, were men of affairs, and had acquired, by
+direct contact with social and political history in the making, the
+secret of understanding how such history is made. Our notions of the
+intellectual history of the <!-- Page 98 -->middle ages are, unfortunately, too often
+derived from writers who have never seriously grappled with
+philosophical and theological problems: and hence that strange myth of
+a millennium of moonshine to which I have adverted.</p>
+
+<p>However, no very profound study of the works of contemporary writers
+who, without devoting themselves specially to theology or philosophy,
+were learned and enlightened&mdash;such men, for example, as Eginhard or
+Dante&mdash;is necessary to convince one's self, that, for them, the world
+of the theologian was an ever-present and awful reality. From the
+centre of that world, the Divine Trinity, surrounded by a hierarchy of
+angels and saints, contemplated and governed the insignificant
+sensible world in which the inferior spirits of men, burdened with the
+debasement of their material embodiment and continually solicited to
+their perdition by a no less numerous and almost as powerful hierarchy
+of devils, were constantly struggling on the edge of the pit of
+everlasting damnation.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15" ></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 99 -->The men of the middle ages believed that through the Scriptures, the
+traditions of the Fathers, and the authority of the Church, they were
+in possession of far more, and more trustworthy, information with
+respect to the nature and order of things in the theological world
+than they had in regard to the nature and order of things in the
+sensible world. And, if the two sources of information came into
+conflict, so much the worse for the sensible world, which, after all,
+was more or less under the dominion of Satan. Let us suppose that a
+telescope powerful enough to show us what is going on in the nebula of
+the sword of Orion, should reveal a world in which stones fell
+upwards, parallel lines met, and the fourth dimension of space was
+quite obvious. Men of science would have only two alternatives before
+them. Either the terrestrial and the nebular facts must be brought
+into harmony by such feats of <!-- Page 100 -->subtle sophistry as the human mind is
+always capable of performing when driven into a corner; or science
+must throw down its arms in despair, and commit suicide, either by the
+admission that the universe is, after all, irrational, inasmuch as
+that which is truth in one corner of it is absurdity in another, or by
+a declaration of incompetency.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle ages, the labours of those great men who endeavoured to
+reconcile the system of thought which started from the data of pure
+reason, with that which started from the data of Roman theology,
+produced the system of thought which is known as scholastic
+philosophy; the alternative of surrender and suicide is exemplified by
+Avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true
+in theology may be false in philosophy, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>; and by
+Sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis &quot;<i>Quod nil scitur</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To those who deny the validity of one of the primary assumptions of
+the disputants&mdash;who decline, on the ground of the utter insufficiency
+of the evidence, to put faith in the reality of that other world, the
+geography and the inhabitants of which are so confidently described in
+the so-called<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16" ></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Christianity of Catholicism&mdash;the long and bitter
+contest, which engaged the best intellects <!-- Page 101 -->for so many centuries, may
+seem a terrible illustration of the wasteful way in which the struggle
+for existence is carried on in the world of thought, no less than in
+that of matter. But there is a more cheerful mode of looking at the
+history of scholasticism. It ground and sharpened the dialectic
+implements of our race as perhaps nothing but discussions, in the
+result of which men thought their eternal, no less than their
+temporal, interests were at stake, could have done. When a logical
+blunder may ensure combustion, not only in the next world but in this,
+the construction of syllogisms acquires a peculiar interest. Moreover,
+the schools kept the thinking faculty alive and active, when the
+disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by
+the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural
+knowledge, might well have stifled it. And, finally, it should be
+remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually
+certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since
+they began to think, and which, I suppose, will present themselves so
+long as they continue to think. Consider, for example, the controversy
+of the Realists and the Nominalists, which was carried on with varying
+fortunes, and under various names, from the time of Scotus Erigena to
+the end of the scholastic period. Has it now a merely antiquarian
+interest? Has Nominalism, in any of its modifications, so completely
+<!-- Page 102 -->won the day that Realism may be regarded as dead and buried without
+hope of resurrection? Many people seem to think so, but it appears to
+me that, without taking Catholic philosophy into consideration, one
+has not to look about far to find evidence that Realism is still to
+the fore, and indeed extremely lively.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17" ></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The other day I happened to meet with a report of a sermon recently
+preached in St. Paul's Cathedral. From internal evidence I am inclined
+to think that the report is substantially correct. But as I have not
+the slightest intention of finding fault with the eminent theologian
+and eloquent preacher to whom the discourse is attributed, for
+employment of scientific language in a manner for which he could find
+only too many scientific precedents, the accuracy of the report in
+detail is not to the purpose. I may safely take it as the embodiment
+of views which are thought to be <!-- Page 103 -->quite in accordance with science by
+many excellent, instructed, and intelligent people.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The preacher further contended that it was yet more
+     difficult to realise that our earthly home would become the
+     scene of a vast physical catastrophe. Imagination recoils
+     from the idea that the course of nature&mdash;the phrase helps to
+     disguise the truth&mdash;so unvarying and regular, the ordered
+     sequence of movement and life, should suddenly cease.
+     Imagination looks more reasonable when it assumes the air of
+     scientific reason. Physical law, it says, will prevent the
+     occurrence of catastrophes only anticipated by an apostle in
+     an unscientific age. Might not there, however, be a
+     suspension of a lower law by the intervention of a higher?
+     Thus every time we lifted our arms we defied the laws of
+     gravitation, and in railways and steamboats powerful laws
+     were held in check by others. The flood and the destruction
+     of Sodom and Gomorrah were brought about by the operation of
+     existing laws, and may it not be that in His illimitable
+     universe there are more important laws than those which
+     surround our puny life&mdash;moral and not merely physical
+     forces? Is it inconceivable that the day will come when
+     these royal and ultimate laws shall wreck the natural order
+     of things which seems so stable and so fair? Earthquakes
+     were not things of remote antiquity, as an island off Italy,
+     the Eastern Archipelago, Greece, and Chicago bore
+     witness.... In presence of a great earthquake men feel how
+     powerless they are, and their very knowledge adds to their
+     weakness. The end of human probation, the final dissolution
+     of organised society, and the destruction of man's home on
+     the surface of the globe, were none of them violently
+     contrary to our present experience, but only the extension
+     of present facts. The presentiment of death was common;
+     there were felt to be many things which threatened the
+     existence of society; and as our globe was a ball of fire,
+     at any moment the pent-up forces which surge and <!-- Page 104 -->boil
+     beneath our feet might be poured out (&quot;Pall Mall Gazette,&quot;
+     December 6, 1886).</p></div>
+
+<p>The preacher appears to entertain the notion that the occurrence of a
+&quot;catastrophe&quot;<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18" ></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> involves a breach of the present order of
+nature&mdash;that it is an event incompatible with the physical laws which
+at present obtain. He seems to be of opinion that &quot;scientific reason&quot;
+lends its authority to the imaginative supposition that physical law
+will prevent the occurrence of the &quot;catastrophes&quot; anticipated by an
+unscientific apostle.</p>
+
+<p>Scientific reason, like Homer, sometimes nods; but I am not aware that
+it has ever dreamed dreams of this sort. The fundamental axiom of
+scientific thought is that there is not, never has been, and never
+will be, any disorder in nature. The admission of the occurrence of
+any event which was not the logical consequence of the immediately
+antecedent events, according to these definite, ascertained, or
+unascertained rules which we call the &quot;laws of nature,&quot; would be an
+act of self-destruction on the part of science.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Catastrophe&quot; is a relative conception. For ourselves it means an
+event which brings about very terrible consequences to man, or
+impresses his mind by its magnitude relatively to him. But events
+which are quite in the natural order of <!-- Page 105 -->things to us, may be
+frightful catastrophes to other sentient beings. Surely no
+interruption of the order of nature is involved if, in the course of
+descending through an Alpine pine-wood, I jump upon an anthill and in
+a moment wreck a whole city and destroy a hundred thousand of its
+inhabitants. To the ants the catastrophe is worse than the earthquake
+of Lisbon. To me it is the natural and necessary consequence of the
+laws of matter in motion. A redistribution of energy has taken place,
+which is perfectly in accordance with natural order, however
+unpleasant its effects may be to the ants.</p>
+
+<p>Imagination, inspired by scientific reason, and not merely assuming
+the airs thereof, as it unfortunately too often does in the pulpit, so
+far from having any right to repudiate catastrophes and deny the
+possibility of the cessation of motion and life, easily finds
+justification for the exactly contrary course. Kant in his famous
+&quot;Theory of the Heavens&quot; declares the end of the world and its
+reduction to a formless condition to be a necessary consequence of the
+causes to which it owes its origin and continuance. And, as to
+catastrophes of prodigious magnitude and frequent occurrence, they
+were the favourite <i>asylum ignoranti&aelig;</i> of geologists, not a quarter of
+a century ago. If modern geology is becoming more and more disinclined
+to call in catastrophes to its aid, it is not because of any <i>a
+priori</i> difficulty in reconciling <!-- Page 106 -->the occurrence of such events with
+the universality of order, but because the <i>a posteriori</i> evidence of
+the occurrence of events of this character in past times has more or
+less completely broken down.</p>
+
+<p>It is, to say the least, highly probable that this earth is a mass of
+extremely hot matter, invested by a cooled crust, through which the
+hot interior still continues to cool, though with extreme slowness. It
+is no less probable that the faults and dislocations, the foldings and
+fractures, everywhere visible in the stratified crust, its large and
+slow movements through miles of elevation and depression, and its
+small and rapid movements which give rise to the innumerable perceived
+and unperceived earthquakes which are constantly occurring, are due to
+the shrinkage of the crust on its cooling and contracting nucleus.</p>
+
+<p>Without going beyond the range of fair scientific analogy, conditions
+are easily conceivable which should render the loss of heat far more
+rapid than it is at present; and such an occurrence would be just as
+much in accordance with ascertained laws of nature, as the more rapid
+cooling of a red-hot bar, when it is thrust into cold water, than when
+it remains in the air. But much more rapid cooling might entail a
+shifting and rearrangement of the parts of the crust of the earth on a
+scale of unprecedented magnitude, and bring about &quot;catastrophes&quot; to
+which the earthquake of Lisbon is but a trifle. It is conceivable that
+man and his <!-- Page 107 -->works and all the higher forms of animal life should be
+utterly destroyed; that mountain regions should he converted into
+ocean depths and the floor of oceans raised into mountains; and the
+earth become a scene of horror which even the lurid fancy of the
+writer of the Apocalypse would fail to portray. And yet, to the eye of
+science, there would he no more disorder here than in the sabbatical
+peace of a summer sea. Not a link in the chain of natural causes and
+effects would he broken, nowhere would there be the slightest
+indication of the &quot;suspension of a lower law by a higher.&quot; If a sober
+scientific thinker is inclined to put little faith in the wild
+vaticinations of universal ruin which, in a less saintly person than
+the seer of Patmos, might seem to be dictated by the fury of a
+revengeful fanatic, rather than by the spirit of the teacher who bid
+men love their enemies, it is not on the ground that they contradict
+scientific principles; but because the evidence of their scientific
+value does not fulfil the conditions on which weight is attached to
+evidence. The imagination which supposes that it does, simply does not
+&quot;assume the air of scientific reason.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I repeat that, if imagination is used within the limits laid down by
+science, disorder is unimaginable. If a being endowed with perfect
+intellectual and &aelig;sthetic faculties, but devoid of the capacity for
+suffering pain, either physical or moral, were <!-- Page 108 -->to devote his utmost
+powers to the investigation of nature, the universe would seem to him
+to be a sort of kaleidoscope, in which, at every successive moment of
+time, a new arrangement of parts of exquisite beauty and symmetry
+would present itself; and each of them would show itself to be the
+logical consequence of the preceding arrangement, under the conditions
+which we call the laws of nature. Such a spectator might well be
+filled with that <i>Amor intellectualis Dei</i>, the beatific vision of the
+<i>vita contemplativa</i>, which some of the greatest thinkers of all ages,
+Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, have regarded as the only conceivable
+eternal felicity; and the vision of illimitable suffering, as if
+sensitive beings were unregarded animalcules which had got between the
+bits of glass of the kaleidoscope, which mars the prospect to us poor
+mortals, in no wise alters the fact that order is lord of all, and
+disorder only a name for that part of the order which gives us pain.</p>
+
+<p>The other fallacious employment of the names of scientific conceptions
+which pervades the preacher's utterance, brings me back to the proper
+topic of the present essay. It is the use of the word &quot;law&quot; as if it
+denoted a thing&mdash;as if a &quot;law of nature,&quot; as science understands it,
+were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the
+phenomena expressed by that law are brought about. The preacher asks,
+&quot;Might not there be a suspension of a lower law by the intervention of
+<!-- Page 109 -->a higher?&quot; He tells us that every time we lift our arms we defy the
+law of gravitation. He asks whether some day certain &quot;royal and
+ultimate laws&quot; may not come and &quot;wreck&quot; those laws which are at
+present, it would appear, acting as nature's police. It is evident,
+from these expressions, that &quot;laws,&quot; in the mind of the preacher, are
+entities having an objective existence in a graduated hierarchy. And
+it would appear that the &quot;royal laws&quot; are by no means to be regarded
+as constitutional royalties: at any moment, they may, like Eastern
+despots, descend in wrath among the middle-class and plebeian laws,
+which have hitherto done the drudgery of the world's work, and, to use
+phraseology not unknown in our seats of learning&mdash;&quot;make hay&quot; of their
+belongings. Or perhaps a still more familiar analogy has suggested
+this singular theory; and it is thought that high laws may &quot;suspend&quot;
+low laws, as a bishop may suspend a curate.</p>
+
+<p>Far be it from me to controvert these views, if any one likes to hold
+them. All I wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of
+&quot;laws&quot; has nothing to do with modern science. It is scholastic
+realism&mdash;realism as intense and unmitigated as that of Scotus Erigena
+a thousand years ago. The essence of such realism is that it maintains
+the objective existence of universals, or, as we call them nowadays,
+general propositions. It affirms, for example, that &quot;man&quot; is a real
+<!-- Page 110 -->thing, apart from individual men, having its existence, not in the
+sensible, but in the intelligible world, and clothing itself with the
+accidents of sense to make the Jack and Tom and Harry whom we know.
+Strange as such a notion may appear to modern scientific thought, it
+really pervades ordinary language. There are few people who would, at
+once, hesitate to admit that colour, for example, exists apart from
+the mind which conceives the idea of colour. They hold it to be
+something which resides in the coloured object; and so far they are as
+much Realists as if they had sat at Plato's feet. Reflection on the
+facts of the case must, I imagine, convince every one that &quot;colour&quot;
+is&mdash;not a mere name, which was the extreme Nominalist position&mdash;but a
+name for that group of states of feeling which we call blue, red,
+yellow, and so on, and which we believe to be caused by luminiferous
+vibrations which have not the slightest resemblance to colour; while
+these again are set afoot by states of the body to which we ascribe
+colour, but which are equally devoid of likeness to colour.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way, a law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the
+product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come
+under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than
+colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the manner in
+which experience shows that bodies, which are free to move, do, in
+<!-- Page 111 -->fact, move towards one another. But the other facts of observation,
+that bodies are not always moving in this fashion, and sometimes move
+in a contrary direction, are implied in the words &quot;free to move.&quot; If
+it is a law of nature that bodies tend to move towards one another in
+a certain way; it is another and no less true law of nature that, if
+bodies are not free to move as they tend to do, either in consequence
+of an obstacle, or of a contrary impulse from some other source of
+energy than that to which we give the name of gravitation, they either
+stop still, or go another way.</p>
+
+<p>Scientifically speaking, it is the acme of absurdity to talk of a man
+defying the law of gravitation when he lifts his arm. The general
+store of energy in the universe working through terrestrial matter is
+doubtless tending to bring the man's arm down; but the particular
+fraction of that energy which is working through certain of his
+nervous and muscular organs is tending to drive it up, and more energy
+being expended on the arm in the upward than in the downward
+direction, the arm goes up accordingly. But the law of gravitation is
+no more defied, in this case, than when a grocer throws so much sugar
+into the empty pan of his scales that the one which contains the
+weight kicks the beam.</p>
+
+<p>The tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are
+agents, instead of being, as they <!-- Page 112 -->really are, a mere record of
+experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does
+happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an
+interesting psychological fact; and would be unintelligible if the
+tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong.</p>
+
+<p>Even at the present day, and in the writings of men who would at once
+repudiate scholastic realism in any form, &quot;law&quot; is often inadvertently
+employed in the sense of cause, just as, in common life, a man will
+say that he is compelled by the law to do so and so, when, in point of
+fact, all he means is that the law orders him to do it, and tells him
+what will happen if he does not do it. We commonly hear of bodies
+falling to the ground by reason of the law of gravitation, whereas
+that law is simply the record of the fact that, according to all
+experience, they have so fallen (when free to move), and of the
+grounds of a reasonable expectation that they will so fall. If it
+should be worth anybody's while to seek for examples of such misuse of
+language on my own part, I am not at all sure he might not succeed,
+though I have usually been on my guard against such looseness of
+expression. If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope
+that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I
+venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no
+wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an error for
+which <!-- Page 113 -->he might find good precedents. But it is one of those errors
+which, in the case of a person engaged in scientific pursuits, do
+little harm, because it is corrected as soon as its consequences
+become obvious; while those who know physical science only by name
+are, as has been seen, easily led to build a mighty fabric of
+unrealities on this fundamental fallacy. In fact, the habitual use of
+the word &quot;law,&quot; in the sense of an active thing, is almost a mark of
+pseudo-science; it characterises the writings of those who have
+appropriated the forms of science without knowing anything of its
+substance.</p>
+
+<p>There are two classes of these people: those who are ready to believe
+in any miracle so long as it is guaranteed by ecclesiastical
+authority; and those who are ready to believe in any miracle so long
+as it has some different guarantee. The believers in what are
+ordinarily called miracles&mdash;those who accept the miraculous narratives
+which they are taught to think are essential elements of religious
+doctrine&mdash;are in the one category; the spirit-rappers, table-turners,
+and all the other devotees of the occult sciences of our day are in
+the other: and, if they disagree in most things they agree in this,
+namely, that they ascribe to science a dictum that is not scientific;
+and that they endeavour to upset the dictum thus foisted on science by
+a realistic argument which is equally unscientific.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 114 -->It is asserted, for example, that, on a particular occasion, water
+was turned into wine; and, on the other hand, it is asserted that a
+man or a woman &quot;levitated&quot; to the ceiling, floated about there, and
+finally sailed out by the window. And it is assumed that the
+pardonable scepticism, with which most scientific men receive these
+statements, is due to the fact that they feel themselves justified in
+denying the possibility of any such metamorphosis of water, or of any
+such levitation, because such events are contrary to the laws of
+nature. So the question of the preacher is triumphantly put: How do
+you know that there are not &quot;higher&quot; laws of nature than your chemical
+and physical laws, and that these higher laws may not intervene and
+&quot;wreck&quot; the latter?</p>
+
+<p>The plain answer to this question is, Why should anybody be called
+upon to say how he knows that which he does not know? You are assuming
+that laws are agents&mdash;efficient causes of that which happens&mdash;and that
+one law can interfere with another. To us, that assumption is as
+nonsensical as if you were to talk of a proposition of Euclid being
+the cause of the diagram which illustrates it, or of the integral
+calculus interfering with the rule of three. Your question really
+implies that we pretend to complete knowledge not only of all past and
+present phenomena, but of all that are possible in the future, and we
+leave all that sort of thing to the adepts of esoteric<!-- Page 115 --> Buddhism. Our
+pretensions are infinitely more modest. We have succeeded in finding
+out the rules of action of a little bit of the universe; we call these
+rules &quot;laws of nature,&quot; not because anybody knows whether they bind
+nature or not, but because we find it is obligatory on us to take them
+into account, both as actors under nature, and as interpreters of
+nature. We have any quantity of genuine miracles of our own, and if
+you will furnish us with as good evidence of your miracles as we have
+of ours, we shall be quite happy to accept them and to amend our
+expression of the laws of nature in accordance with the new facts.</p>
+
+<p>As to the particular cases adduced, we are so perfectly fair-minded as
+to be willing to help your case as far as we can. You are quite
+mistaken in supposing that anybody who is acquainted with the
+possibilities of physical science will undertake categorically to deny
+that water may be turned into wine. Many very competent judges are
+already inclined to think that the bodies, which we have hitherto
+called elementary, are really composite arrangements of the particles
+of a uniform primitive matter. Supposing that view to be correct,
+there would be no more theoretical difficulty about turning water into
+alcohol, ethereal and colouring matters, than there is, at this
+present moment, any practical difficulty in working other such
+miracles; as when we turn sugar into alcohol, <!-- Page 116 -->carbonic acid,
+glycerine, and succinic acid; or transmute gas-refuse into perfumes
+rarer than musk and dyes richer than Tyrian purple. If the so-called
+&quot;elements,&quot; oxygen and hydrogen, which compose water, are aggregates
+of the same ultimate particles, or physical units, as those which
+enter into the structure of the so-called element &quot;carbon,&quot; it is
+obvious that alcohol and other substances, composed of carbon,
+hydrogen, and oxygen, may be produced by a rearrangement of some of
+the units of oxygen and hydrogen into the &quot;element&quot; carbon, and their
+synthesis with the rest of the oxygen and hydrogen.</p>
+
+<p>Theoretically, therefore, we can have no sort of objection to your
+miracle. And our reply to the levitators is just the same. Why should
+not your friend &quot;levitate&quot;? Fish are said to rise and sink in the
+water by altering the volume of an internal air-receptacle; and there
+may be many ways science, as yet, knows nothing of, by which we, who
+live at the bottom of an ocean of air, may do the same thing.
+Dialectic gas and wind appear to be by no means wanting among you, and
+why should not long practice in pneumatic philosophy have resulted in
+the internal generation of something a thousand times rarer than
+hydrogen, by which, in accordance with the most ordinary natural laws,
+you would not only rise to the ceiling and float there in
+quasi-angelic posture, but perhaps, as one of your feminine adepts is
+said to have done, flit <!-- Page 117 -->swifter than train or telegram to
+&quot;still-vexed Bermoothes,&quot; and twit Ariel, if he happens to be there,
+for a sluggard? We have not the presumption to deny the possibility of
+anything you affirm; only, as our brethren are particular about
+evidence, do give us as much to go upon as may save us from being
+roared down by their inextinguishable laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Enough of the realism which clings about &quot;laws.&quot; There are plenty of
+other exemplifications of its vitality in modern science, but I will
+cite only one of them.</p>
+
+<p>This is the conception of &quot;vital force&quot; which comes straight from the
+philosophy of Aristotle. It is a fundamental proposition of that
+philosophy that a natural object is composed of two constituents&mdash;the
+one its matter, conceived as inert or even, to a certain extent,
+opposed to orderly and purposive motion; the other its form, conceived
+as a quasi-spiritual something, containing or conditioning the actual
+activities of the body and the potentiality of its possible
+activities.</p>
+
+<p>I am disposed to think that the prominence of this conception in
+Aristotle's theory of things arose from the circumstance that he was
+to begin with and throughout his life, devoted to biological studies.
+In fact it is a notion which must force itself upon the mind of any
+one who studies biological phenomena, without reference to general
+physics, as they now stand. Everybody who <!-- Page 118 -->observes the obvious
+phenomena of the development of a seed into a tree, or of an egg into
+an animal, will note that a relatively formless mass of matter
+gradually grows, takes a definite shape and structure, and, finally,
+begins to perform actions which contribute towards a certain end,
+namely, the maintenance of the individual in the first place, and of
+the species in the second. Starting from the axiom that every event
+has a cause, we have here the <i>causa finalis</i> manifested in the last
+set of phenomena, the <i>causa materialis</i> and <i>formalis</i> in the first,
+while the existence of a <i>causa efficiens</i> within the seed or egg and
+its product, is a corollary from the phenomena of growth and
+metamorphosis, which proceed in unbroken succession and make up the
+life of the animal or plant.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, at starting, the egg or seed is matter having a &quot;form&quot; like all
+other material bodies. But this form has the peculiarity, in
+contradistinction to lower substantial &quot;forms,&quot; that it is a power
+which constantly works towards an end by means of living organisation.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I know, Leibnitz is the only philosopher (at the same time a
+man of science, in the modern sense, of the first rank) who has noted
+that the modern conception of Force, as a sort of atmosphere
+enveloping the particles of bodies, and having potential or actual
+activity, is simply a new name for the Aristotelian Form.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19" ></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> In
+modern biology, <!-- Page 119 -->up till within quite recent times, the Aristotelian
+conception held undisputed sway; living matter was endowed with &quot;vital
+force,&quot; and that accounted for everything. Whosoever was not satisfied
+with that explanation was treated to that very &quot;plain
+argument&quot;&mdash;&quot;confound you eternally&quot;&mdash;wherewith Lord Peter overcomes
+the doubts of his brothers in the &quot;Tale of a Tub.&quot; &quot;Materialist&quot; was
+the mildest term applied to him&mdash;fortunate if he escaped pelting with
+&quot;infidel&quot; and &quot;atheist.&quot; There may be scientific Rip Van Winkles
+about, who still hold by vital force; but among those biologists who
+have not been asleep for the last quarter of a century &quot;vital force&quot;
+no longer figures in the vocabulary of science. It is a patent
+survival of realism; the generalisation from experience that all
+living bodies exhibit certain activities of a definite character is
+made the basis of the notion that every living body contains an
+entity, &quot;vital force,&quot; which is assumed to be the cause of those
+activities.</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable, in looking back, to notice to what an extent this
+and other survivals of scholastic realism arrested or, at any rate,
+impeded the application of sound scientific principles to the
+investigation of biological phenomena. When I was beginning to think
+about these matters, the scientific world was occasionally agitated by
+discussions respecting the nature of the &quot;species&quot; and &quot;genera&quot; of
+Naturalists, of a different order <!-- Page 120 -->from the disputes of a later time.
+I think most were agreed that a &quot;species&quot; was something which existed
+objectively, somehow or other, and had been created by a Divine fiat.
+As to the objective reality of genera, there was a good deal of
+difference of opinion. On the other hand, there were a few who could
+see no objective reality in anything but individuals, and looked upon
+both species and genera as hypostatised universals. As for myself, I
+seem to have unconsciously emulated William of Occam, inasmuch as
+almost the first public discourse I ever ventured upon, dealt with
+&quot;Animal Individuality,&quot; and its tendency was to fight the Nominalist
+battle even in that quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Realism appeared in still stranger forms at the time to which I refer.
+The community of plan which is observable in each great group of
+animals was hypostatised into a Platonic idea with the appropriate
+name of &quot;archetype,&quot; and we were told, as a disciple of Philo-Jud&aelig;us
+might have told us, that this realistic figment was &quot;the archetypal
+light&quot; by which Nature has been guided amidst the &quot;wreck of worlds.&quot;
+So, again, another naturalist, who had no less earned a well-deserved
+reputation by his contributions to positive knowledge, put forward a
+theory of the production of living things which, as nearly as the
+increase of knowledge allowed, was a reproduction of the doctrine
+inculcated by the Jewish Cabbala.</p>
+
+<p>Annexing the archetype notion, and carrying it <!-- Page 121 -->to its full logical
+consequence, the author of this theory conceived that the species of
+animals and plants were so many incarnations of the thoughts of
+God&mdash;material representations of Divine ideas&mdash;during the particular
+period of the world's history at which they existed. But, under the
+influence of the embryological and pal&aelig;ontological discoveries of
+modern times, which had already lent some scientific support to the
+revived ancient theories of cosmical evolution or emanation, the
+ingenious author of this speculation, while denying and repudiating
+the ordinary theory of evolution by successive modification of
+individuals, maintained and endeavoured to prove the occurrence of a
+progressive modification in the divine ideas of successive epochs.</p>
+
+<p>On the foundation of a supposed elevation of organisation in the whole
+living population of any epoch, as compared with that of its
+predecessor, and a supposed complete difference in species between the
+populations of any two epochs (neither of which suppositions has stood
+the test of further inquiry), the author of this speculation based his
+conclusion that the Creator had, so to speak, improved upon his
+thoughts as time went on; and that, as each such amended scheme of
+creation came up, the embodiment of the earlier divine thoughts was
+swept away by a universal catastrophe, and an incarnation of the
+improved ideas took its place. Only after the last such<!-- Page 122 --> &quot;wreck&quot; thus
+brought about, did the embodiment of a divine thought, in the shape of
+the first man, make its appearance as the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of the
+cosmogonical process.</p>
+
+<p>I imagine that Louis Agassiz, the genial backwoodsman of the science
+of my young days, who did more to open out new tracks in the
+scientific forest than most men, would have been much surprised to
+learn that he was preaching the doctrine of the Cabbala, pure and
+simple. According to this modification of Neoplatonism by contact with
+Hebrew speculation, the divine essence is unknowable&mdash;without form or
+attribute; but the interval between it and the world of sense is
+filled by intelligible entities, which are nothing but the familiar
+hypostatised abstractions of the realists. These have emanated, like
+immense waves of light, from the divine centre, and, as ten
+consecutive zones of Sephiroth, form the universe. The farther away
+from the centre, the more the primitive light wanes, until the
+periphery ends in those mere negations, darkness and evil, which are
+the essence of matter. On this, the divine agency transmitted through
+the Sephiroth operates after the fashion of the Aristotelian forms,
+and, at first, produces the lowest of a series of worlds. After a
+certain duration the primitive world is demolished and its fragments
+used up in making a better; and this process is repeated, until at
+length a final world, with man for its crown and finish, makes its
+appearance.<!-- Page 123 --> It is needless to trace the process of retrogressive
+metamorphosis by which, through the agency of the Messiah, the steps
+of the process of evolution here sketched are retraced. Sufficient has
+been said to prove that the extremist realism current in the
+philosophy of the thirteenth century can be fully matched by the
+speculations of our own time.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> There is no exaggeration in this brief and summary view
+of the Catholic cosmos. But it would be unfair to leave it to be
+supposed that the Reformation made any essential alteration, except
+perhaps for the worse, in that cosmology which called itself
+&quot;Christian.&quot; The protagonist of the Reformation, from whom the whole
+of the Evangelical sects are lineally descended, states the case with
+that plainness of speech, not to say brutality, which characterised
+him. Luther says that man is a beast of burden who only moves as his
+rider orders; sometimes God rides him, and sometimes Satan. &quot;Sic
+voluntas humana in medio posita est, ceu jumentum; si insederit Deus,
+vult et vadit, quo vult Deus.... Si insederit Satan, vult et vadit,
+quo vult Satan; nec est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere,
+aut eum qu&aelig;rere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum obtinendum et
+possidendum&quot; (<i>De Servo Arbitrio</i>, M. Lutheri Opera, ed. 1546, t. ii.
+p. 468). One may hear substantially the same doctrine preached in the
+parks and at street-corners by zealous volunteer missionaries of
+Evangelicism, any Sunday, in modern London. Why these doctrines, which
+are conspicuous by their absence in the four Gospels, should arrogate
+to themselves the title of Evangelical, in contradistinction to
+Catholic, Christianity, may well perplex the impartial inquirer, who,
+if he were obliged to choose between the two, might naturally prefer
+that which leaves the poor beast of burden a little freedom of
+choice.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> I say &quot;so-called&quot; not by way of offence, but as a
+protest against the monstrous assumption that Catholic Christianity is
+explicitly or implicitly contained in any trustworthy record of the
+teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> It may be desirable to observe that, in modern times,
+the term &quot;Realism&quot; has acquired a signification wholly different from
+that which attached to it in the middle ages. We commonly use it as
+the contrary of Idealism. The Idealist holds that the phenomenal world
+has only a subjective existence, the Realist that it has an objective
+existence. I am not aware that any medi&aelig;val philosopher was an
+Idealist in the sense in which we apply the term to Berkeley. In fact,
+the cardinal defect of their speculations lies in their oversight of
+the considerations which lead to Idealism. If many of them regarded
+the material world as a negation, it was an active negation; not zero,
+but a minus quantity.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> At any rate a catastrophe greater than the flood, which,
+as I observe with interest, is as calmly assumed by the preacher to be
+an historical event as if science had never had a word to say on that
+subject!</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> &quot;Les formes des anciens ou Ent&eacute;l&eacute;chies ne sont autre
+chose que les forces&quot; (Leibnitz, <i>Lettre au P&egrave;re Bouvet</i>, 1697).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III" ></a><!-- Page 124 -->III</h2>
+
+<h3>SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE</h3>
+
+<h4>[1887]</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the opening sentences of a contribution to the last number of this
+Review,<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20" ></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> the Duke of Argyll has favoured me with a lecture on the
+proprieties of controversy, to which I should be disposed to listen
+with more docility if his Grace's precepts appeared to me to be based
+upon rational principles, or if his example were more exemplary.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to the latter point, the Duke has thought fit to entitle
+his article &quot;Professor Huxley on Canon Liddon,&quot; and thus forces into
+prominence an element of personality, which those who read the paper
+which is the object of the Duke's animadversions will observe I have
+endeavoured, most carefully, to avoid. My criticisms dealt with a
+report of a sermon, published in a newspaper, and thereby addressed to
+all the world. Whether that sermon was preached by A or B was not a
+<!-- Page 125 -->matter of the smallest consequence; and I went out of my way to
+absolve the learned divine to whom the discourse was attributed from
+the responsibility for statements which, for anything I knew to the
+contrary, might contain imperfect, or inaccurate, representations of
+his views. The assertion that I had the wish, or was beset, by any
+&quot;temptation to attack&quot; Canon Liddon is simply contrary to fact.</p>
+
+<p>But suppose that if, instead of sedulously avoiding even the
+appearance of such attack, I had thought fit to take a different
+course; suppose that, after satisfying myself that the eminent
+clergyman whose name is paraded by the Duke of Argyll had really
+uttered the words attributed to him from the pulpit of St. Paul's,
+what right would any one have to find fault with my action on grounds
+either of justice, expediency, or good taste?</p>
+
+<p>Establishment has its duties as well as its rights. The clergy of a
+State Church enjoy many advantages over those of unprivileged and
+unendowed religious persuasions; but they lie under a correlative
+responsibility to the State, and to every member of the body politic.
+I am not aware that any sacredness attaches to sermons. If preachers
+stray beyond the doctrinal limits set by lay lawyers, the Privy
+Council will see to it; and, if they think fit to use their pulpits
+for the promulgation of literary, or historical, or scientific errors,
+<!-- Page 126 -->it is not only the right, but the duty, of the humblest layman, who
+may happen to be better informed, to correct the evil effects of such
+perversion of the opportunities which the State affords them; and such
+misuse of the authority which its support lends them. Whatever else it
+may claim to be, in its relations with the State, the Established
+Church is a branch of the Civil Service; and, for those who repudiate
+the ecclesiastical authority of the clergy, they are merely civil
+servants, as much responsible to the English people for the proper
+performance of their duties as any others.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Argyll tells us that the &quot;work and calling&quot; of the clergy
+prevent them from &quot;pursuing disputation as others can.&quot; I wonder if
+his Grace ever reads the so-called &quot;religious&quot; newspapers. It is not
+an occupation which I should commend to any one who wishes to employ
+his time profitably; but a very short devotion to this exercise will
+suffice to convince him that the &quot;pursuit of disputation,&quot; carried to
+a degree of acrimony and vehemence unsurpassed in lay controversies,
+seems to be found quite compatible with the &quot;work and calling&quot; of a
+remarkably large number of the clergy.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, it appears to me that nothing can be in worse taste than the
+assumption that a body of English gentlemen can, by any possibility,
+desire that immunity from criticism which the Duke of<!-- Page 127 --> Argyll claims
+for them. Nothing would be more personally offensive to me than the
+supposition that I shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any lecture I
+ever gave. I should be utterly ashamed of myself if, when I stood up
+as an instructor of others, I had not taken every pains to assure
+myself of the truth of that which I was about to say; and I should
+feel myself bound to be even more careful with a popular assembly, who
+would take me more or less on trust, than with an audience of
+competent and critical experts.</p>
+
+<p>I decline to assume that the standard of morality, in these matters,
+is lower among the clergy than it is among scientific men. I refuse to
+think that the priest who stands up before a congregation, as the
+minister and interpreter of the Divinity, is less careful in his
+utterances, less ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman who
+comes before his audience, as the minister and interpreter of nature.
+Yet what should we think of the man of science who, when his ignorance
+or his carelessness was exposed, whined about the want of delicacy of
+his critics, or pleaded his &quot;work and calling&quot; as a reason for being
+let alone?</p>
+
+<p>No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to
+dispense with the tonic of criticism. Nothing has done more harm to
+the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regarding
+them, when in the pulpit, as <!-- Page 128 -->a sort of chartered libertines, whose
+divagations are not to be taken seriously. And I am well assured that
+the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is the
+last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonouring
+protection which has been superfluously thrown over him.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the lecture on propriety. But the Duke of Argyll, to whom
+the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the honour to
+make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admonitions, some on
+philosophical, some on geological, some on biological topics. I can
+but rejoice that the Duke's authority in these matters is not always
+employed to show that I am ignorant of them; on the contrary, I meet
+with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, for which I proffer
+such gratitude as may be due, even if that gratitude is sometimes
+almost overshadowed by surprise.</p>
+
+<p>I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the Duke of Argyll, who
+professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like
+another Balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue.</p>
+
+<p>I denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science of
+the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are violations
+of natural law; and the Duke of Argyll says that he believes my
+&quot;denial to be well-founded. The <!-- Page 129 -->preacher was answering an objection
+which has now been generally abandoned.&quot; Either the preacher knew this
+or he did not know it. It seems to me, as a mere lay teacher, to be a
+pity that the &quot;great dome of St. Paul's&quot; should have been made to
+&quot;echo&quot; (if so be that such stentorian effects were really produced) a
+statement which, admitting the first alternative, was unfair, and,
+admitting the second, was ignorant.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21" ></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>
+
+<p>Having thus sacrified one half of the preacher's arguments, the Duke
+of Argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other half. It
+appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence of those
+events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence
+of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary occasional
+consequences of uniform changes. Whence I conclude, his Grace agrees
+with me, that the talk about royal laws &quot;wrecking&quot; <!-- Page 130 -->ordinary laws may
+be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense.</p>
+
+<p>And now comes a further surprise. After having given these superfluous
+stabs to the slain body of the preacher's argument, my good ally
+remarks, with magnificent calmness: &quot;So far, then, the preacher and
+the professor are at one.&quot; &quot;Let them smoke the calumet.&quot; By all means:
+smoke would be the most appropriate symbol of this wonderful attempt
+to cover a retreat. After all, the Duke has come to bury the preacher,
+not to praise him; only he makes the funeral obsequies look as much
+like a triumphal procession as possible.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the questions between the preacher and myself are concerned,
+then, I may feel happy. The authority of the Duke of Argyll is ranged
+on my side. But the Duke has raised a number of other questions, with
+respect to which I fear I shall have to dispense with his
+support&mdash;nay, even be compelled to differ from him as much, or more,
+than I have done about his Grace's new rendering of the &quot;benefit of
+clergy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In discussing catastrophes, the Duke indulges in statements, partly
+scientific, partly anecdotic, which appear to me to be somewhat
+misleading. We are told, to begin with, that Sir Charles Lyell's
+doctrine respecting the proper mode of interpreting the facts of
+geology (which is commonly called uniformitarianism) &quot;does not hold
+<!-- Page 131 -->its head quite so high as it once did.&quot; That is great news indeed.
+But is it true? All I can say is that I am aware of nothing that has
+happened of late that can in any way justify it; and my opinion is,
+that the body of Lyell's doctrine, as laid down in that great work,
+&quot;The Principles of Geology,&quot; whatever may have happened to its head,
+is a chief and permanent constituent of the foundations of geological
+science.</p>
+
+<p>But this question cannot he advantageously discussed, unless we take
+some pains to discriminate between the essential part of the
+uniformitarian doctrine and its accessories; and it does not appear
+that the Duke of Argyll has carried his studies of geological
+philosophy so far as this point. For he defines uniformitarianism to
+be the assumption of the &quot;extreme slowness and perfect continuity of
+all geological changes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>What &quot;perfect continuity&quot; may mean in this definition, I am by no
+means sure; but I can only imagine that it signifies the absence of
+any break in the course of natural order during the millions of years,
+the lapse of which is recorded by geological phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>Is the Duke of Argyll prepared to say that any geologist of authority,
+at the present day, believes that there is the slightest evidence of
+the occurrence of supernatural intervention, during the long ages of
+which the monuments are preserved to us in the crust of the earth? And
+if he is not, <!-- Page 132 -->in what sense has this part of the uniformitarian
+doctrine, as he defines it, lowered its pretensions to represent
+scientific truth?</p>
+
+<p>As to the &quot;extreme slowness of all geological changes,&quot; it is simply a
+popular error to regard that as, in any wise, a fundamental and
+necessary dogma of uniformitarianism. It is extremely astonishing to
+me that any one who has carefully studied Lyell's great work can have
+so completely failed to appreciate its purport, which yet is &quot;writ
+large&quot; on the very title-page: &quot;The Principles of Geology, being an
+attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by
+reference to causes now in operation.&quot; The essence of Lyell's doctrine
+is here written so that those who run may read; and it has nothing to
+do with the quickness or slowness of the past changes of the earth's
+surface; except in so far as existing analogous changes may go on
+slowly, and therefore create a presumption in favour of the slowness
+of past changes.</p>
+
+<p>With that epigrammatic force which characterises his style, Buffon
+wrote, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, in his famous &quot;Th&eacute;orie de
+la Terre&quot;: &quot;Pour juger de ce qui est arriv&eacute;, et m&ecirc;me de ce qui
+arrivera, nous n'avons qu'&agrave; examiner ce qui arrive.&quot; The key of the
+past, as of the future, is to be sought in the present; and, only when
+known causes of change have been shown to be insufficient, have we any
+right to have recourse to <!-- Page 133 -->unknown causes. Geology is as much a
+historical science as arch&aelig;ology; and I apprehend that all sound
+historical investigation rests upon this axiom. It underlay all
+Hutton's work and animated Lyell and Scope in their successful efforts
+to revolutionise the geology of half a century ago.</p>
+
+<p>There is no antagonism whatever, and there never was, between the
+belief in the views which had their chief and unwearied advocate in
+Lyell and the belief in the occurrence of catastrophes. The first
+edition of Lyell's &quot;Principles,&quot; published in 1830, lies before me;
+and a large part of the first volume is occupied by an account of
+volcanic, seismic, and diluvial catastrophes which have occurred
+within the historical period. Moreover, the author, over and over
+again, expressly draws the attention of his readers to the consistency
+of catastrophes with his doctrine.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed
+     within the last three thousand years the devastation by
+     deluge of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the
+     future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to
+     regard them as part of the present order of nature, and they
+     may be introduced into geological speculations respecting
+     the past, provided that we do not imagine them to have been
+     more frequent or general than we expect them to be in time
+     to come (vol. i. p. 89).</p></div>
+
+<p>Again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>If we regard each of the causes separately, which we know to
+     be at present the most instrumental in remodelling the state
+     of the surface, we shall find that we must expect <!-- Page 134 -->each to
+     be in action for thousands of years, without producing any
+     extensive alterations in the habitable surface, and then to
+     give rise, during a very brief period, to important
+     revolutions (vol. ii. p. 161).<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22" ></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Lyell quarrelled with the catastrophists then, by no means because
+they assumed that catastrophes occur and have occurred, but because
+they had got into the habit of calling on their god Catastrophe to
+help them, when they ought to have been putting their shoulders to the
+wheel of observation of the present course of nature, in order to help
+themselves out of their difficulties. And geological science has
+become what it is, chiefly because geologists have gradually accepted
+Lyell's doctrine and followed his precepts.</p>
+
+<p>So far as I know anything about the matter, there is nothing that can
+be called proof, that the causes of geological phenomena operated more
+intensely or more rapidly, at any time between the older tertiary and
+the oldest pal&aelig;ozoic epochs than they have done between the older
+tertiary epoch and the present day. And if that is so,
+uniformitarianism, even as limited by Lyell,<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23" ></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> has no <!-- Page 135 -->call to lower
+its crest. But if the facts were otherwise, the position Lyell took up
+remains impregnable. He did not say that the geological operations of
+nature were never more rapid, or more vast, than they are now; what he
+did maintain is the very different proposition that there is no good
+evidence of anything of the kind. And that proposition has not yet
+been shown to be incorrect.</p>
+
+<p>I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the &quot;Principles of
+Geology&quot; in my young days; and, long before the year 1856, my mind was
+familiar with the truth that &quot;the doctrine of uniformity is not
+incompatible with great and sudden changes,&quot; which, as I have shown,
+is taught <i>totidem verbis</i> in that work. Even had it been possible for
+me to shut my eyes to the sense of what I had read in the
+&quot;Principles,&quot; Whewell's &quot;Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,&quot;
+published in 1840, a work with which I was also tolerably familiar,
+must have opened them. For the always acute, <!-- Page 136 -->if not always profound,
+author, in arguing against Lyell's uniformitarianism, expressly points
+out that it does not in any way contravene the occurrence of
+catastrophes.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>With regard to such occurrences [earthquakes, deluges,
+     etc.], terrible as they appear at the time, they may not
+     much affect the average rate of change: there may be a
+     <i>cycle</i>, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change:
+     and if such cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still
+     call the order of nature uniform, notwithstanding the
+     periods of violence which it involves.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24" ></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>The reader who has followed me through this brief chapter of the
+history of geological philosophy will probably find the following
+passage in the paper of the Duke of Argyll to be not a little
+remarkable:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Many years ago, when I had the honor of being President of
+     the British Association,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25" ></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> I ventured to point out, in the
+     presence and in the hearing of that most distinguished man
+     [Sir C. Lyell] that the doctrine of uniformity was not
+     incompatible with great and sudden changes, since cycles of
+     these and other cycles of comparative rest might well be
+     constituent parts of that uniformity which he asserted.
+     Lyell did not object to this extended interpretation of his
+     own doctrine, and indeed expressed to me his entire
+     concurrence.</p></div>
+
+<p>I should think he did; for, as I have shown, there was nothing in it
+that Lyell himself had not said, six-and-twenty years before, and
+enforced, three years before; and it is almost verbally <!-- Page 137 -->identical
+with the view of uniformitarianism taken by Whewell, sixteen years
+before, in a work with which, one would think, that any one who
+undertakes to discuss the philosophy of science should be familiar.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years have elapsed since the beginner of 1856 persuaded himself
+that he enlightened the foremost geologist of his time, and one of the
+most acute and far-seeing men of science of any time, as to the scope
+of the doctrines which the veteran philosopher had grown gray in
+promulgating; and the Duke of Argyll's acquaintance with the
+literature of geology has not, even now, become sufficiently profound
+to dissipate that pleasant delusion.</p>
+
+<p>If the Duke of Argyll's guidance in that branch of physical science,
+with which alone he has given evidence of any practical acquaintance,
+is thus unsafe, I may breathe more freely in setting my opinion
+against the authoritative deliverances of his Grace about matters
+which lie outside the province of geology.</p>
+
+<p>And here the Duke's paper offers me such a wealth of opportunities
+that choice becomes embarrassing. I must bear in mind the good old
+adage, &quot;Non multa sed multum.&quot; Tempting as it would be to follow the
+Duke through his labyrinthine misunderstandings of the ordinary
+terminology of philosophy and to comment on the curious
+unintelligibility which hangs about <!-- Page 138 -->his frequent outpourings of
+fervid language, limits of space oblige me to restrict myself to those
+points, the discussion of which may help to enlighten the public in
+respect of matters of more importance than the competence of my Mentor
+for the task which he has undertaken.</p>
+
+<p>I am not sure when the employment of the word Law, in the sense in
+which we speak of laws of nature, commenced, but examples of it may be
+found in the works of Bacon, Descartes, and Spinoza. Bacon employs
+&quot;Law&quot; as the equivalent of &quot;Form,&quot; and I am inclined to think that he
+may be responsible for a good deal of the confusion that has
+subsequently arisen; but I am not aware that the term is used by other
+authorities, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in any other
+sense than that of &quot;rule&quot; or &quot;definite order&quot; of the coexistence of
+things or succession of events in nature. Descartes speaks of &quot;r&egrave;gles,
+que je nomme les lois de la nature.&quot; Leibnitz says &quot;loi ou r&egrave;gle
+g&eacute;n&eacute;rale,&quot; as if he considered the terms interchangeable.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Argyll, however, affirms that the &quot;law of gravitation&quot; as
+put forth by Newton was something more than the statement of an
+observed order. He admits that Kepler's three laws &quot;were an observed
+order of facts and nothing more.&quot; As to the law of gravitation, &quot;it
+contains an element which Kepler's laws did not contain, even an
+element of causation, the recognition of which <!-- Page 139 -->belongs to a higher
+category of intellectual conceptions than that which is concerned in
+the mere observation and record of separate and apparently unconnected
+facts.&quot; There is hardly a line in these paragraphs which appears to me
+to be indisputable. But, to confine myself to the matter in hand, I
+cannot conceive that any one who had taken ordinary pains to acquaint
+himself with the real nature of either Kepler's or Newton's work could
+have written them. That the labours of Kepler, of all men in the
+world, should be called &quot;mere observation and record,&quot; is truly
+wonderful. And any one who will look into the &quot;Principia,&quot; or the
+&quot;Optics,&quot; or the &quot;Letters to Bentley,&quot; will see, even if he has no
+more special knowledge of the topics discussed than I have, that
+Newton over and over again insisted that he had nothing to do with
+gravitation as a physical cause, and that when he used the terms
+attraction, force, and the like, he employed them, as he says,
+&quot;<i>mathematic&egrave;</i>&quot; and not &quot;<i>physic&egrave;</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>How these attractions [of gravity, magnetism, and
+     electricity] may be performed, I do not here consider. What
+     I call attraction may be performed by impulse or by some
+     other means unknown to me. I use that word here to signify
+     only in a general way any force by which bodies tend towards
+     one another, whatever be the cause.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26" ></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>According to my reading of the best authorities upon the history of
+science, Newton discovered <!-- Page 140 -->neither gravitation, nor the law of
+gravitation; nor did he pretend to offer more than a conjecture as to
+the causation of gravitation. Moreover, his assertion that the notion
+of a body acting where it is not, is one that no competent thinker
+could entertain, is antagonistic to the whole current conception of
+attractive and repulsive forces, and therefore of &quot;the attractive
+force of gravitation.&quot; What, then, was that labour of unsurpassed
+magnitude and excellence and of immortal influence which Newton did
+perform? In the first place, Newton defined the laws, rules, or
+observed order of the phenomena of motion, which come under our daily
+observation, with greater precision than had been before attained;
+and, by following out, with marvellous power and subtlety, the
+mathematical consequences of these rules, he almost created the modern
+science of pure mechanics. In the second place, applying exactly the
+same method to the explication of the facts of astronomy as that which
+was applied a century and a half later to the facts of geology by
+Lyell, he set himself to solve the following problem. Assuming that
+all bodies, free to move, tend to approach one another as the earth
+and the bodies on it do; assuming that the strength of that tendency
+is directly as the mass and inversely as the squares of the distances;
+assuming that the laws of motion, determined for terrestrial bodies,
+hold good throughout the universe; assuming that the planets and
+<!-- Page 141 -->their satellites were created and placed at their observed mean
+distances, and that each received a certain impulse from the Creator;
+will the form of the orbits, the varying rates of motion of the
+planets, and the ratio between those rates and their distances from
+the sun, which must follow by mathematical reasoning from these
+premisses, agree with the order of facts determined by Kepler and
+others, or not?</p>
+
+<p>Newton, employing mathematical methods which are the admiration of
+adepts, but which no one but himself appears to have been able to use
+with ease, not only answered this question in the affirmative, but
+stayed not his constructive genius before it had founded modern
+physical astronomy.</p>
+
+<p>The historians of mechanical and of astronomical science appear to be
+agreed that he was the first person who clearly and distinctly put
+forth the hypothesis that the phenomena comprehended under the general
+name of &quot;gravity&quot; follow the same order throughout the universe, and
+that all material bodies exhibit these phenomena; so that, in this
+sense, the idea of universal gravitation may, doubtless, be properly
+ascribed to him.</p>
+
+<p>Newton proved that the laws of Kepler were particular consequences of
+the laws of motion and the law of gravitation&mdash;in other words, the
+reason of the first lay in the two latter. But to talk of the law of
+gravitation alone as the reason <!-- Page 142 -->of Kepler's laws, and still more as
+standing in any causal relation to Kepler's laws, is simply a misuse
+of language. It would really be interesting if the Duke of Argyll
+would explain how he proposes to set about showing that the elliptical
+form of the orbits of the planets, the constant area described by the
+radius vector, and the proportionality of the squares of the periodic
+times to the cubes of the distances from the sun, are either caused by
+the &quot;force of gravitation&quot; or deducible from the &quot;law of gravitation.&quot;
+I conceive that it would be about as apposite to say that the various
+compounds of nitrogen with oxygen are caused by chemical attraction
+and deducible from the atomic theory.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Newton assuredly lent no shadow of support to the modern
+pseudo-scientific philosophy which confounds laws with causes. I have
+not taken the trouble to trace out this commonest of fallacies to its
+first beginning; but I was familiar with it in full bloom more than
+thirty years ago, in a work which had a great vogue in its day&mdash;the
+&quot;Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation&quot;&mdash;of which the first
+edition was published in 1844.</p>
+
+<p>It is full of apt and forcible illustrations of pseudo-scientific
+realism. Consider, for example, this gem serene. When a boy who has
+climbed a tree loses his hold of the branch, &quot;the law of gravitation
+unrelentingly pulls him to the ground, <!-- Page 143 -->and then he is hurt,&quot; whereby
+the Almighty is quite relieved from any responsibility for the
+accident. Here is the &quot;law of gravitation&quot; acting as a cause in a way
+quite in accordance with the Duke of Argyll's conception of it. In
+fact, in the mind of the author of the &quot;Vestiges,&quot; &quot;laws&quot; are
+existences intermediate between the Creator and His works, like the
+&quot;ideas&quot; of the Platonisers or the Logos of the Alexandrians.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27" ></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> I may
+cite a passage which is quite in the vein of Philo:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>We have seen powerful evidences that the construction of
+     this globe and its associates; and, inferentially, that of
+     all the other globes in space, was the result, not of any
+     immediate or personal exertion on the part of the Deity, but
+     of natural laws which are the expression of His will. What
+     is to hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also
+     a result of natural laws which are in like manner an
+     expression of His will? (p. 154, 1st edition).</p></div>
+
+<p>And creation &quot;operating by law&quot; is constantly cited as relieving the
+Creator from trouble about insignificant details.</p>
+
+<p>I am perplexed to picture to myself the state of mind which accepts
+these verbal juggleries. It is intelligible that the Creator should
+operate according to such rules as he might think fit to lay down for
+himself (and therefore according to law); but that would leave the
+operation of his will just as much a direct personal act as it would
+be under any other circumstances. I can also understand <!-- Page 144 -->that (as in
+Leibnitz's caricature of Newton's views) the Creator might have made
+the cosmical machine, and, after setting it going, have left it to
+itself till it needed repair. But then, by the supposition, his
+personal responsibility would have been involved in all that it did;
+just as much as a dynamiter is responsible for what happens, when he
+has set his machine going and left it to explode.</p>
+
+<p>The only hypothesis which gives a sort of mad consistency to the
+Vestigiarian's views is the supposition that laws are a kind of angels
+or demiurgoi, who, being supplied with the Great Architect's plan,
+were permitted to settle the details among themselves. Accepting this
+doctrine, the conception of royal laws and plebeian laws, and of those
+more than Homeric contests in which the big laws &quot;wreck&quot; the little
+ones, becomes quite intelligible. And, in fact, the honour of the
+paternity of those remarkable ideas which come into full flower in the
+preacher's discourse must, so far as my imperfect knowledge goes, be
+attributed to the author of the &quot;Vestiges.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the author of the &quot;Vestiges&quot; is not the only writer who is
+responsible for the current pseudo-scientific mystifications which
+hang about the term &quot;law.&quot; When I wrote my paper about &quot;Scientific and
+Pseudo-Scientific Realism,&quot; I had not read a work by the Duke of
+Argyll, &quot;The Reign of Law,&quot; which, I believe, has enjoyed, <!-- Page 145 -->possibly
+still enjoys, a widespread popularity. But the vivacity of the Duke's
+attack led me to think it possible that criticisms directed elsewhere
+might have come home to him. And, in fact, I find that the second
+chapter of the work in question, which is entitled &quot;Law; its
+definitions,&quot; is, from my point of view, a sort of &quot;summa&quot; of
+pseudo-scientific philosophy. It will be worth while to examine it in
+some detail.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it is to be noted that the author of the &quot;Reign of
+Law&quot; admits that &quot;law,&quot; in many cases, means nothing more than the
+statement of the order in which facts occur, or, as he says, &quot;an
+observed order of facts&quot; (p. 66). But his appreciation of the value of
+accuracy of expression does not hinder him from adding, almost in the
+same breath, &quot;In this sense the laws of nature are simply those facts
+of nature which recur according to rule&quot; (p. 66). Thus &quot;laws,&quot; which
+were rightly said to be the statement of an order of facts in one
+paragraph, are declared to be the facts themselves in the next.</p>
+
+<p>We are next told that, though it may be customary and permissible to
+use &quot;law&quot; in the sense of a statement of the order of facts, this is a
+low use of the word; and, indeed, two pages farther on, the writer,
+flatly contradicting himself, altogether denies its admissibility.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>An observed order of facts, to be entitled to the rank of a
+     law, must be an order so constant and uniform as to indicate
+     <!-- Page 146 -->necessity, and necessity can only arise out of the action
+     of some compelling force (p. 68).</p></div>
+
+<p>This is undoubtedly one of the most singular propositions that I have
+ever met with in a professedly scientific work, and its rarity is
+embellished by another direct self-contradiction which it implies. For
+on the preceding page (67), when the Duke of Argyll is speaking of the
+laws of Kepler, which he admits to be laws, and which are types of
+that which men of science understand by &quot;laws,&quot; he says that they are
+&quot;simply and purely an order of facts.&quot; Moreover, he adds: &quot;A very
+large proportion of the laws of every science are laws of this kind
+and in this sense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>If, according to the Duke of Argyll's admission, law is understood, in
+this sense, thus widely and constantly by scientific authorities,
+where is the justification for his unqualified assertion that such
+statements of the observed order of facts are not &quot;entitled to the
+rank&quot; of laws?</p>
+
+<p>But let us examine the consequences of the really interesting
+proposition I have just quoted. I presume that it is a law of nature
+that &quot;a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.&quot;
+This law affirms the constant association of a certain fact of form
+with a certain fact of dimension. Whether the notion of necessity
+which attaches to it has an <i>a priori</i>, or an <i>a posteriori</i> origin is
+a question not relevant to the present discussion.<!-- Page 147 --> But I would beg to
+be informed, if it is necessary, where is the &quot;compelling force&quot; out
+of which the necessity arises; and further, if it is not necessary,
+whether it loses the character of a law of nature?</p>
+
+<p>I take it to be the law of nature, based on unexceptionable evidence,
+that the mass of matter remains unchanged, whatever chemical or other
+modifications it may undergo. This law is one of the foundations of
+chemistry. But it is by no means necessary. It is quite possible to
+imagine that the mass of matter should vary according to
+circumstances, as we know its weight does. Moreover, the determination
+of the &quot;force&quot; which makes mass constant (if there is any
+intelligibility in that form of words) would not, so far as I can see,
+confer any more validity on the law than it has now.</p>
+
+<p>There is a law of nature, so well vouched by experience, that all
+mankind, from pure logicians in search of examples to parish sextons
+in search of fees, confide in it. This is the law that &quot;all men are
+mortal.&quot; It is simply a statement of the observed order of facts that
+all men sooner or later die. I am not acquainted with any law of
+nature which is more &quot;constant and uniform&quot; than this. But will any
+one tell me that death is &quot;necessary&quot;? Certainly there is no <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> necessity in the case, for various men have been imagined to
+be immortal. And I should be glad <!-- Page 148 -->to be informed of any &quot;necessity&quot;
+that can be deduced from biological considerations. It is quite
+conceivable, as has recently been pointed out, that some of the lowest
+forms of life may be immortal, after a fashion. However this may be, I
+would further ask, supposing &quot;all men are mortal&quot; to be a real law of
+nature, where and what is that to which, with any propriety, the title
+of &quot;compelling force&quot; of the law can be given?</p>
+
+<p>On page 69, the Duke of Argyll asserts that the law of gravitation &quot;is
+a law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause.&quot; But this
+revival of the teaching of the &quot;Vestiges&quot; has already been examined
+and disposed of; and when the Duke of Argyll states that the &quot;observed
+order&quot; which Kepler had discovered was simply a necessary consequence
+of the force of &quot;gravitation,&quot; I need not recapitulate the evidence
+which proves such a statement to be wholly fallacious. But it may be
+useful to say, once more, that, at this present moment, nobody knows
+anything about the existence of a &quot;force&quot; of gravitation apart from
+the fact; that Newton declared the ordinary notion of such force to be
+inconceivable; that various attempts have been made to account for the
+order of facts we call gravitation, without recourse to the notion of
+attractive force; that, if such a force exists, it is utterly
+incompetent to account for Kepler's laws, without taking into the
+<!-- Page 149 -->reckoning a great number of other considerations; and, finally, that
+all we know about the &quot;force&quot; of gravitation, or any other so-called
+&quot;force,&quot; is that it is a name for the hypothetical cause of an
+observed order of facts.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, when the Duke of Argyll says: &quot;Force, ascertained according to
+some measure of its operation&mdash;this is indeed one of the definitions,
+but only one, of a scientific law&quot; (p. 71) I reply that it is a
+definition which must be repudiated by every one who possesses an
+adequate acquaintance with either the facts, or the philosophy, of
+science, and be relegated to the limbo of pseudo-scientific fallacies.
+If the human mind has never entertained this notion of &quot;force,&quot; nay,
+if it substituted bare invariable succession for the ordinary notion
+of causation, the idea of law, as the expression of a
+constantly-observed order, which generates a corresponding intensity
+of expectation in our minds, would have exactly the same value, and
+play its part in real science, exactly as it does now.</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to extend further the present excursus on the origin
+and history of modern pseudo-science. Under such high patronage as it
+has enjoyed, it has grown and flourished until, nowadays, it is
+becoming somewhat rampant. It has its weekly &quot;Ephemerides,&quot; in which
+every new pseudo-scientific mare's-nest is hailed and belauded with
+the unconscious unfairness of ignorance; and an army of &quot;reconcilers,&quot;
+enlisted <!-- Page 150 -->in its service, whose business seems to be to mix the black
+of dogma and the white of science into the neutral tint of what they
+call liberal theology.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that, not long after the publication of the &quot;Vestiges,&quot; a
+shrewd and sarcastic countryman of the author defined it as &quot;cauld
+kail made het again.&quot; A cynic might find amusement in the reflection
+that, at the present time, the principles and the methods of the
+much-vilified Vestigiarian are being &quot;made het again&quot;; and are not
+only &quot;echoed by the dome of St. Paul's,&quot; but thundered from the castle
+of Inverary. But my turn of mind is not cynical, and I can but regret
+the waste of time and energy bestowed on the endeavour to deal with
+the most difficult problems of science, by those who have neither
+undergone the discipline, nor possess the information, which are
+indispensable to the successful issue of such an enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>I have already had occasion to remark that the Duke of Argyll's views
+of the conduct of controversy are different from mine; and this
+much-to-be lamented discrepancy becomes yet more accentuated when the
+Duke reaches biological topics. Anything that was good enough for Sir
+Charles Lyell, in his department of study, is certainly good enough
+for me in mine; and I by no means demur to being pedagogically
+instructed about a variety of matters with which it has been <!-- Page 151 -->the
+business of my life to try to acquaint myself. But the Duke of Argyll
+is not content with favouring me with his opinions about my own
+business; he also answers for mine; and, at that point, really the
+worm must turn. I am told that &quot;no one knows better than Professor
+Huxley&quot; a variety of things which I really do not know; and I am said
+to be a disciple of that &quot;Positive Philosophy&quot; which I have, over and
+over again, publicly repudiated in language which is certainly not
+lacking in intelligibility whatever may be its other defects.</p>
+
+<p>I am told that I have been amusing myself with a &quot;metaphysical
+exercitation or logomachy&quot; (may I remark incidentally that these are
+not quite convertible terms?), when, to the best of my belief, I have
+been trying to expose a process of mystification, based upon the use
+of scientific language by writers who exhibit no sign of scientific
+training, of accurate scientific knowledge, or of clear ideas
+respecting the philosophy of science, which is doing very serious harm
+to the public. Naturally enough, they take the lion's skin of
+scientific phraseology for evidence that the voice which issues from
+beneath it is the voice of science, and I desire to relieve them from
+the consequences of their error.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Argyll asks, apparently with sorrow that it should be his
+duty to subject me to reproof&mdash;<!-- Page 152 --></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>What shall we say of a philosophy which confounds the
+     organic with the inorganic, and, refusing to take note of a
+     difference so profound, assumes to explain under one common
+     abstraction, the movements due to gravitation and the
+     movements due to the mind of man?</p></div>
+
+<p>To which I may fitly reply by another question: What shall we say to a
+controversialist who attributes to the subject of his attack opinions
+which are notoriously not his; and expresses himself in such a manner
+that it is obvious he is unacquainted with even the rudiments of that
+knowledge which is necessary to the discussion into which he has
+rushed?</p>
+
+<p>What line of my writing can the Duke of Argyll produce which confounds
+the organic with the inorganic?</p>
+
+<p>As to the latter half of the paragraph, I have to confess a doubt
+whether it has any definite meaning. But I imagine that the Duke is
+alluding to my assertion that the law of gravitation is nowise
+&quot;suspended&quot; or &quot;defied&quot; when a man lifts his arm; but that, under such
+circumstances, part of the store of energy in the universe operates on
+the arm at a mechanical advantage as against the operation of another
+part. I was simple enough to think that no one who had as much
+knowledge of physiology as is to be found in an elementary primer, or
+who had ever heard of the greatest physical generalisation of modern
+times&mdash;the doctrine of the conservation of energy&mdash;would <!-- Page 153 -->dream of
+doubting my statement; and I was further simple enough to think that
+no one who lacked these qualifications would feel tempted to charge me
+with error. It appears that my simplicity is greater than my powers of
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Argyll may not be aware of the fact, but it is
+nevertheless true, that when a man's arm is raised, in sequence to
+that state of consciousness we call a volition, the volition is not
+the immediate cause of the elevation of the arm. On the contrary, that
+operation is effected by a certain change of form, technically known
+as &quot;contraction&quot; in sundry masses of flesh, technically known as
+muscles, which are fixed to the bones of the shoulder in such a manner
+that, if these muscles contract, they must raise the arm. Now each of
+these muscles is a machine comparable, in a certain sense, to one of
+the donkey-engines of a steamship, but more complete, inasmuch as the
+source of its ability to change its form, or contract, lies within
+itself. Every time that, by contracting, the muscle does work, such as
+that involved in raising the arm, more or less of the material which
+it contains is used up, just as more or less of the fuel of a
+steam-engine is used up, when it does work. And I do not think there
+is a doubt in the mind of any competent physicist, or physiologist,
+that the work done in lifting the weight of the arm is the mechanical
+equivalent of a certain proportion of the energy set free by the
+molecular changes <!-- Page 154 -->which take place in the muscle. It is further a
+tolerably well-based belief that this, and all other forms of energy,
+are mutually convertible; and, therefore, that they all come under
+that general law or statement of the order of facts, called the
+conservation of energy. And, as that certainly is an abstraction, so
+the view which the Duke of Argyll thinks so extremely absurd is really
+one of the commonplaces of physiology. But this Review is hardly an
+appropriate place for giving instruction in the elements of that
+science, and I content myself with recommending the Duke of Argyll to
+devote some study to Book II. chap. v. section 4 of my friend Dr.
+Foster's excellent text-book of Physiology (1st edition, 1877, p.
+321), which begins thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Broadly speaking, the animal body is a machine for
+     converting potential into actual energy. The potential
+     energy is supplied by the food; this the metabolism of the
+     body converts into the actual energy of heat and mechanical
+     labour.</p></div>
+
+<p>There is no more difficult problem in the world than that of the
+relation of the state of consciousness, termed volition, to the
+mechanical work which frequently follows upon it. But no one can even
+comprehend the nature of the problem, who has not carefully studied
+the long series of modes of motion which, without a break, connect the
+energy which does that work with the general store of energy. The
+ultimate form of the <!-- Page 155 -->problem is this: Have we any reason to believe
+that a feeling, or state of consciousness, is capable of directly
+affecting the motion of even the smallest conceivable molecule of
+matter? Is such a thing even conceivable? If we answer these questions
+in the negative, it follows that volition may be a sign, but cannot be
+a cause, of bodily motion. If we answer them in the affirmative, then
+states of consciousness become undistinguishable from material things;
+for it is the essential nature of matter to be the vehicle or
+substratum of mechanical energy.</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing new in all this. I have merely put into modern
+language the issue raised by Descartes more than two centuries ago.
+The philosophies of the Occasionalists, of Spinoza, of Malebranche, of
+modern idealism and modern materialism, have all grown out of the
+controversies which Cartesianism evoked. Of all this the
+pseudo-science of the present time appears to be unconscious;
+otherwise it would hardly content itself with &quot;making het again&quot; the
+pseudo-science of the past.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of these observations I have already had occasion to
+express my appreciation of the copious and perfervid eloquence which
+enriches the Duke of Argyll's pages. I am almost ashamed that a
+constitutional insensibility to the Sirenian charms of rhetoric has
+permitted me in wandering through these flowery meads, to <!-- Page 156 -->be
+attracted, almost exclusively, to the bare places of fallacy and the
+stony grounds of deficient information, which are disguised, though
+not concealed, by these floral decorations. But, in his concluding
+sentences, the Duke soars into a Tyrt&aelig;an strain which roused even my
+dull soul.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It was high time, indeed, that some revolt should be raised
+     against that Reign of Terror which had come to be
+     established in the scientific world under the abuse of a
+     great name. Professor Huxley has not joined this revolt
+     openly, for as yet, indeed, it is only beginning to raise
+     its head. But more than once&mdash;and very lately&mdash;he has
+     uttered a warning voice against the shallow dogmatism that
+     has provoked it. The time is coming when that revolt will be
+     carried further. Higher interpretations will be established.
+     Unless I am much mistaken, they are already coming in sight
+     (p. 339).</p></div>
+
+<p>I have been living very much out of the world for the last two or
+three years, and when I read this denunciatory outburst, as of one
+filled with the spirit of prophecy, I said to myself, &quot;Mercy upon us,
+what has happened? Can it be that X. and Y. (it would be wrong to
+mention the names of the vigorous young friends which occurred to me)
+are playing Danton and Robespierre; and that a guillotine is erected
+in the courtyard of Burlington House for the benefit of all
+anti-Darwinian Fellows of the Royal Society? Where are the secret
+conspirators against this tyranny, whom I am supposed to favour, and
+yet not have the courage to join openly? And to think of my <!-- Page 157 -->poor
+oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, 'compelled to speak with bated
+breath' (p. 338) certainly for the first time in my thirty-odd years'
+acquaintance with him!&quot; My alarm and horror at the supposition that
+while I had been fiddling (or at any rate physicking), my beloved Rome
+had been burning, in this fashion, may be imagined.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure the Duke of Argyll will be glad to hear that the anxiety he
+created was of extremely short duration. It is my privilege to have
+access to the best sources of information, and nobody in the
+scientific world can tell me anything about either the &quot;Reign of
+Terror&quot; or &quot;the Revolt.&quot; In fact, the scientific world laughs most
+indecorously at the notion of the existence of either; and some are so
+lost to the sense of the scientific dignity, that they descend to the
+use of transatlantic slang, and call it a &quot;bogus scare.&quot; As to my
+friend Mr. Herbert Spencer, I have every reason to know that, in the
+&quot;Factors of Organic Evolution,&quot; he has said exactly what was in his
+mind, without any particular deference to the opinions of the person
+whom he is pleased to regard as his most dangerous critic and Devil's
+Advocate-General, and still less of any one else.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whether the Duke of Argyll pictures himself as the
+Tallien of this imaginary revolt against a no less imaginary Reign of
+Terror. But if so, I most respectfully but firmly decline <!-- Page 158 -->to join his
+forces. It is only a few weeks since I happened to read over again the
+first article which I ever wrote (now twenty-seven years ago) on the
+&quot;Origin of Species,&quot; and I found nothing that I wished to modify in
+the opinions that are there expressed, though the subsequent vast
+accumulation of evidence in favour of Mr. Darwin's views would give me
+much to add. As is the case with all new doctrines, so with that of
+Evolution, the enthusiasm of advocates has sometimes tended to
+degenerate into fanaticism; and mere speculation has, at times,
+threatened to shoot beyond its legitimate bounds. I have occasionally
+thought it wise to warn the more adventurous spirits among us against
+these dangers, in sufficiently plain language; and I have sometimes
+jestingly said that I expected, if I lived long enough, to be looked
+on as a reactionary by some of my more ardent friends. But nothing
+short of midsummer madness can account for the fiction that I am
+waiting till it is safe to join openly a revolt, hatched by some
+person or persons unknown, against an intellectual movement with which
+I am in the most entire and hearty sympathy. It is a great many years
+since, at the outset of my career, I had to think seriously what life
+had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the
+chief good, for me, was freedom to learn, think, and say what I
+pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on <!-- Page 159 -->that conviction, and have
+availed myself of the &quot;rara temporum felicitas ubi sentire qu&aelig; velis,
+et qu&aelig; sentias dicere licet,&quot; which is now enjoyable, to the best of
+my ability; and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I
+should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the
+results of the line of action I have adopted.</p>
+
+<p>My career is at an end. I have</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>Warmed both hands before the fire of life;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and nothing is left me, before I depart, but to help, or at any rate
+to abstain from hindering, the younger generation of men of science in
+doing better service to the cause we have at heart than I have been
+able to render.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, forsooth, I am supposed to be waiting for the signal of
+&quot;revolt,&quot; which some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise
+before I dare express my real opinions concerning questions about
+which we older men had to fight, in the teeth of fierce public
+opposition and obloquy&mdash;of something which might almost justify even
+the grandiloquent epithet of a Reign of Terror&mdash;before our excellent
+successors had left school.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear that the spirit of pseudo-science has impregnated even
+the imagination of the Duke of Argyll. The scientific imagination
+always restrains itself within the limits of probability.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, March, 1887.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The Duke of Argyll speaks of the recent date of the
+demonstration of the fallacy of the doctrine in question. &quot;Recent&quot; is
+a relative term, but I may mention that the question is fully
+discussed in my book on <i>Hume</i>; which, if I may believe my publishers,
+has been read by a good many people since it appeared in 1879.
+Moreover, I observe, from a note at page 89 of <i>The Reign of Law</i>, a
+work to which I shall have occasion to advert by and by, that the Duke
+of Argyll draws attention to the circumstance that, so long ago as
+1866, the views which I hold on this subject were well known. The
+Duke, in fact, writing about this time, says, after quoting a phrase
+of mine: &quot;The question of miracles seems now to be admitted on all
+hands to be simply a question of evidence.&quot; In science, we think that
+a teacher who ignores views which have been discussed <i>coram populo</i>
+for twenty years, is hardly up to the mark.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See also vol. i. p. 460. In the ninth edition (1853),
+published twenty-three years after the first. Lyell deprives even the
+most careless reader of any excuse for misunderstanding him: &quot;So in
+regard to subterranean movements, the theory of the perpetual
+uniformity of the force which they exert on the earth-crust is quite
+consistent with the admission of their alternate development and
+suspension for indefinite periods within limited geographical areas&quot;
+(p. 187).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> A great many years ago (Presidential Address to the
+Geological Society, 1869) I ventured to indicate that which seemed to
+me to be the weak point, not in the fundamental principles of
+uniformitarianism, but in uniformitarianism as taught by Lyell. It
+lay, to my mind, in the refusal by Hutton, and in a less degree by
+Lyell, to look beyond the limits of the time recorded by the
+stratified rocks. I said: &quot;This attempt to limit, at a particular
+point, the progress of inductive and deductive reasoning from the
+things which are to the things which were&mdash;this faithlessness to its
+own logic, seems to me to have cost uniformitarianism the place as the
+permanent form of geological speculation which it might otherwise have
+held&quot; (<i>Lay Sermons</i>, p. 260). The context shows that
+&quot;uniformitarianism&quot; here means that doctrine, as limited in
+application by Hutton and Lyell, and that what I mean by
+&quot;evolutionism&quot; is consistent and thorough-going uniformitarianism.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences</i>, vol. i. p. 670.
+New edition, 1847.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> At Glasgow in 1856.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Optics</i>, query 31.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> The author recognises this in his <i>Explanations</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV" ></a><!-- Page 160 -->IV</h2>
+
+<h3>AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY</h3>
+
+<h4>[1887]</h4>
+
+
+<p>If there is any truth in the old adage that a burnt child dreads the
+fire, I ought to be very loath to touch a sermon, while the memory of
+what befell me on a recent occasion, possibly not yet forgotten by the
+readers of the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, is uneffaced. But I suppose that
+even the distinguished censor of that unheard-of audacity to which not
+even the newspaper report of a sermon is sacred, can hardly regard a
+man of science as either indelicate or presumptuous, if he ventures to
+offer some comments upon three discourses, specially addressed to the
+great assemblage of men of science which recently gathered at
+Manchester, by three bishops of the State Church. On my return to
+England not long ago, I found a pamphlet<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28" ></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> containing a version,
+which I presume <!-- Page 161 -->to be authorised, of these sermons, among the huge
+mass of letters and papers which had accumulated during two months'
+absence; and I have read them not only with attentive interest, but
+with a feeling of satisfaction which is quite new to me as a result of
+hearing, or reading, sermons. These excellent discourses, in fact,
+appear to me to signalise a new departure in the course adopted by
+theology towards science, and to indicate the possibility of bringing
+about an honourable <i>modus vivendi</i> between the two. How far the three
+bishops speak as accredited representatives of the Church is a
+question to be considered by and by. Most assuredly, I am not
+authorised to represent any one but myself. But I suppose that there
+must be a good many people in the Church of the bishops' way of
+thinking; and I have reason to believe that, in the ranks of science,
+there are a good many persons who, more or less, share my views. And
+it is to these sensible people on both sides, as the bishops and I
+must needs think those who agree with us, that my present observations
+are addressed. They will probably be astonished to learn how
+insignificant, in principle, their differences are.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to read the discourses of the three prelates without
+being impressed by the knowledge which they display, and by the spirit
+<!-- Page 162 -->of equity, I might say of generosity, towards science which pervades
+them. There is no trace of that tacit or open assumption that the
+rejection of theological dogmas, on scientific grounds, is due to
+moral perversity, which is the ordinary note of ecclesiastical
+homilies on this subject, and which makes them look so supremely silly
+to men whose lives have been spent in wrestling with these questions.
+There is no attempt to hide away real stumbling-blocks under
+rhetorical stucco; no resort to the <i>tu quoque</i> device of setting
+scientific blunders against theological errors; no suggestion that an
+honest man may keep contradictory beliefs in separate pockets of his
+brain; no question that the method of scientific investigation is
+valid, whatever the results to which it may lead; and that the search
+after truth, and truth only, ennobles the searcher and leaves no doubt
+that his life, at any rate, is worth living. The Bishop of Carlisle
+declares himself pledged to the belief that &quot;the advancement of
+science, the progress of human knowledge, is in itself a worthy aim of
+the greatest effort of the greatest minds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>How often was it my fate, a quarter of a century ago, to see the whole
+artillery of the pulpit brought to bear upon the doctrine of evolution
+and its supporters! Any one unaccustomed to the amenities of
+ecclesiastical controversy would have thought we were too wicked to be
+permitted to live. But let us hear the Bishop of Bedford. After a
+<!-- Page 163 -->perfectly frank statement of the doctrine of evolution and some of
+its obvious consequences, that learned prelate pleads, with all
+earnestness, against</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>a hasty denunciation of what <i>may</i> be proved to have at
+     least some elements of truth in it, a contemptuous rejection
+     of theories which we <i>may</i> some day learn to accept as
+     freely and with as little sense of inconsistency with God's
+     word as we now accept the theory of the earth's motion round
+     the sun, or the long duration of the geological epochs (p.
+     28).</p></div>
+
+<p>I do not see that the most convinced evolutionist could ask any one,
+whether cleric or layman, to say more than this; in fact, I do not
+think that any one has a right to say more, with respect to any
+question about which two opinions can he held, than that his mind is
+perfectly open to the force of evidence.</p>
+
+<p>There is another portion of the Bishop of Bedford's sermon which I
+think will be warmly appreciated by all honest and clear-headed men.
+He repudiates the views of those who say that theology and science</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>occupy wholly different spheres, and need in no way
+     intermeddle with each other. They revolve, as it were, in
+     different planes, and so never meet. Thus we may pursue
+     scientific studies with the utmost freedom and, at the same
+     time, may pay the most reverent regard to theology, having
+     no fears of collision, because allowing no points of contact
+     (p. 29).</p></div>
+
+<p>Surely every unsophisticated mind will heartily concur with the
+Bishop's remark upon this convenient <!-- Page 164 -->refuge for the descendants of
+Mr. Facing-both-ways. &quot;I have never been able to understand this
+position though I have often seen it assumed.&quot; Nor can any demurrer be
+sustained when the Bishop proceeds to point out that there are, and
+must be, various points of contact between theological and natural
+science, and therefore that it is foolish to ignore or deny the
+existence of as many dangers of collision.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the Bishop of Manchester freely admits the force of the
+objections which have been raised, on scientific grounds, to prayer,
+and attempts to turn them by arguing that the proper objects of prayer
+are not physical but spiritual. He tells us that natural accidents and
+moral misfortunes are not to be taken for moral judgments of God; he
+admits the propriety of the application of scientific methods to the
+investigation of the origin and growth of religions; and he is as
+ready to recognise the process of evolution there, as in the physical
+world. Mark the following striking passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And how utterly all the common objections to Divine
+     revelation vanish away when they are set in the light of
+     this theory of a spiritual progression. Are we reminded that
+     there prevailed, in those earlier days, views of the nature
+     of God and man, of human life and Divine Providence, which
+     we now find to be untenable? <i>That</i>, we answer, is precisely
+     what the theory of development presupposes. If early views
+     of religion and morality had not been imperfect, where had
+     been the development? If symbolical visions and mythical
+     creations had found no place in the early Oriental
+     expression of Divine truth, where had been the development?<!-- Page 165 -->
+     The sufficient answer to ninety-nine out of a hundred of the
+     ordinary objections to the Bible, as the record of a divine
+     education of our race, is asked in that one
+     word&mdash;development. And to what are we indebted for that
+     potent word, which, as with the wand of a magician, has at
+     the same moment so completely transformed our knowledge and
+     dispelled our difficulties? To modern science, resolutely
+     pursuing its search for truth in spite of popular obloquy
+     and&mdash;alas! that one should have to say it&mdash;in spite too
+     often of theological denunciation (p. 53).</p></div>
+
+<p>Apart from its general importance, I read this remarkable statement
+with the more pleasure, since, however imperfectly I may have
+endeavoured to illustrate the evolution of theology in a paper
+published in the <i>Nineteenth Century</i> last year,<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29" ></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> it seems to me
+that in principle, at any rate, I may hereafter claim high theological
+sanction for the views there set forth.</p>
+
+<p>If theologians are henceforward prepared to recognise the authority of
+secular science in the manner and to the extent indicated in the
+Manchester trilogy; if the distinguished prelates who offer these
+terms are really plenipotentiaries, then, so far as I may presume to
+speak on such a matter, there will be no difficulty about concluding a
+perpetual treaty of peace, and indeed of alliance, between the high
+contracting powers, whose history has hitherto been little more than a
+record of continual warfare. But if the great Chancellor's maxim, &quot;Do
+ut des,&quot; is to form the basis of <!-- Page 166 -->negotiation, I am afraid that
+secular science will be ruined; for it seems to me that theology,
+under the generous impulse of a sudden conversion, has given all that
+she hath; and indeed, on one point, has surrendered more than can
+reasonably be asked.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I must be prepared to face the reproach which attaches to
+those who criticise a gift, if I venture to observe that I do not
+think that the Bishop of Manchester need have been so much alarmed, as
+he evidently has been, by the objections which have often been raised
+to prayer, on the ground that a belief in the efficacy of prayer is
+inconsistent with a belief in the constancy of the order of nature.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop appears to admit that there is an antagonism between the
+&quot;regular economy of nature&quot; and the &quot;regular economy of prayer&quot; (p.
+39), and that &quot;prayers for the interruption of God's natural order&quot;
+are of &quot;doubtful validity&quot; (p. 42). It appears to me that the Bishop's
+difficulty simply adds another example to those which I have several
+times insisted upon in the pages of this Review and elsewhere, of the
+mischief which has been done, and is being done, by a mistaken
+apprehension of the real meaning of &quot;natural order&quot; and &quot;law of
+nature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>May I, therefore, be permitted to repeat, once more, that the
+statements denoted by these terms have no greater value or cogency
+than such as may attach to generalisations from experience of the
+<!-- Page 167 -->past, and to expectations for the future based upon that experience?
+Nobody can presume to say what the order of nature must be; all that
+the widest experience (even if it extended over all past time and
+through all space) that events had happened in a certain way could
+justify, would be a proportionally strong expectation that events will
+go on happening, and the demand for a proportional strength of
+evidence in favour of any assertion that they had happened otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>It is this weighty consideration, the truth of which every one who is
+capable of logical thought must surely admit, which knocks the bottom
+out of all <i>&agrave; priori</i> objections either to ordinary &quot;miracles&quot; or to
+the efficacy of prayer, in so far as the latter implies the miraculous
+intervention of a higher power. No one is entitled to say <i>&agrave; priori</i>
+that any given so-called miraculous event is impossible; and no one is
+entitled to say <i>&agrave; priori</i> that prayer for some change in the ordinary
+course of nature cannot possibly avail.</p>
+
+<p>The supposition that there is any inconsistency between the acceptance
+of the constancy of natural order and a belief in the efficacy of
+prayer, is the more unaccountable as it is obviously contradicted by
+analogies furnished by everyday experience. The belief in the efficacy
+of prayer depends upon the assumption that there is somebody,
+somewhere, who is strong enough to deal with the earth and its
+contents as men deal with the things and events <!-- Page 168 -->which they are strong
+enough to modify or control; and who is capable of being moved by
+appeals such as men make to one another. This belief does not even
+involve theism; for our earth is an insignificant particle of the
+solar system, while the solar system is hardly worth speaking of in
+relation to the All; and, for anything that can be proved to the
+contrary, there may be beings endowed with full powers over our
+system, yet, practically, as insignificant as ourselves in relation to
+the universe. If any one pleases, therefore, to give unrestrained
+liberty to his fancy, he may plead analogy in favour of the dream that
+there may be, somewhere, a finite being, or beings, who can play with
+the solar system as a child plays with a toy; and that such being may
+be willing to do anything which he is properly supplicated to do. For
+we are not justified in saying that it is impossible for beings having
+the nature of men, only vastly more powerful, to exist; and if they do
+exist, they may act as and when we ask them to do so, just as our
+brother men act. As a matter of fact, the great mass of the human race
+has believed, and still believes, in such beings, under the various
+names of fairies, gnomes, angels, and demons. Certainly I do not lack
+faith in the constancy of natural order. But I am not less convinced
+that if I were to ask the Bishop of Manchester to do me a kindness
+which lay within his power, he would do it. And I am unable to see
+that his action on my <!-- Page 169 -->request involves any violation of the order of
+nature. On the contrary, as I have not the honour to know the Bishop
+personally, my action would be based upon my faith, in that &quot;law of
+nature,&quot; or generalisation from experience, which tells me that, as a
+rule, men who occupy the Bishop's position are kindly and courteous.
+How is the case altered if my request is preferred to some imaginary
+superior being, or to the Most High being, who, by the supposition, is
+able to arrest disease, or make the sun stand still in the heavens,
+just as easily as I can stop my watch, or make it indicate any hour
+that pleases me?</p>
+
+<p>I repeat that it is not upon any <i>&agrave; priori</i> considerations that
+objections, either to the supposed efficacy of prayer in modifying the
+course of events, or to the supposed occurrence of miracles, can be
+scientifically based. The real objection, and, to my mind, the fatal
+objection, to both these suppositions, is the inadequacy of the
+evidence to prove any given case of such occurrences which has been
+adduced. It is a canon of common sense, to say nothing of science,
+that the more improbable a supposed occurrence, the more cogent ought
+to be the evidence in its favour. I have looked somewhat carefully
+into the subject, and I am unable to find in the records of any
+miraculous event evidence which even approximates to the fulfilment of
+this requirement.</p>
+
+<p>But, in the case of prayer, the Bishop points <!-- Page 170 -->out a most just and
+necessary distinction between its effect on the course of nature,
+outside ourselves, and its effect within the region of the
+supplicator's mind.</p>
+
+<p>It is a &quot;law of nature,&quot; verifiable by everyday experience, that our
+already formed convictions, our strong desires, our intent occupation
+with particular ideas, modify our mental operations to a most
+marvellous extent, and produce enduring changes in the direction and
+in the intensity of our intellectual and moral activities. Men can
+intoxicate themselves with ideas as effectually as with alcohol or
+with bang, and produce, by dint of intense thinking, mental conditions
+hardly distinguishable from monomania. Demoniac possession is
+mythical; but the faculty of being possessed, more or less completely,
+by an idea is probably the fundamental condition of what is called
+genius, whether it show itself in the saint, the artist, or the man of
+science. One calls it faith, another calls it inspiration, a third
+calls it insight; but the &quot;intending of the mind,&quot; to borrow Newton's
+well-known phrase, the concentration of all the rays of intellectual
+energy on some one point, until it glows and colours the whole cast of
+thought with its peculiar light, is common to all.</p>
+
+<p>I take it that the Bishop of Manchester has psychological science with
+him when he insists upon the subjective efficacy of prayer in faith,
+and on the seemingly miraculous effects which such<!-- Page 171 --> &quot;intending of the
+mind&quot; upon religious and moral ideals may have upon character and
+happiness. Scientific faith, at present, takes it no further than the
+prayer which Ajax offered; but that petition is continually granted.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever points of detail may yet remain open for discussion, however,
+I repeat the opinion I have already expressed, that the Manchester
+sermons concede all that science, has an indisputable right, or any
+pressing need, to ask, and that not grudgingly but generously; and, if
+the three bishops of 1887 carry the Church with them, I think they
+will have as good title to the permanent gratitude of posterity as the
+famous seven who went to the Tower in defence of the Church two
+hundred years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Will their brethren follow their just and prudent guidance? I have no
+such acquaintance with the currents of ecclesiastical opinion as would
+justify me in even hazarding a guess on such a difficult topic. But
+some recent omens are hardly favourable. There seems to be an
+impression abroad&mdash;I do not desire to give any countenance to it&mdash;that
+I am fond of reading sermons. From time to time, unknown
+correspondents&mdash;some apparently animated by the charitable desire to
+promote my conversion, and others unmistakably anxious to spur me to
+the expression of wrathful antagonism&mdash;favour me with reports or
+copies of such productions.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 172 -->I found one of the latter category among the accumulated arrears to
+which I have already referred.</p>
+
+<p>It is a full, and apparently accurate, report of a discourse by a
+person of no less ecclesiastical rank than the three authors of the
+sermons I have hitherto been considering; but who he is, and where or
+when the sermon was preached, are secrets which wild horses shall not
+tear from me, lest I fall again under high censure for attacking a
+clergyman. Only if the editor of this Review thinks it his duty to
+have independent evidence that the sermon has a real existence, will
+I, in the strictest confidence, communicate it to him.</p>
+
+<p>The preacher, in this case, is of a very different mind from the three
+bishops&mdash;and this mind is different in quality, different in spirit,
+and different in contents. He discourses on the <i>&agrave; priori</i> objections
+to miracles, apparently without being aware, in spite of all the
+discussions of the last seven or eight years, that he is doing battle
+with a shadow.</p>
+
+<p>I trust I do not misrepresent the Bishop of Manchester in saying that
+the essence of his remarkable discourse is the insistence upon the
+&quot;supreme importance of the purely spiritual in our faith,&quot; and of the
+relative, if not absolute, insignificance of aught else. He obviously
+perceives the bearing of his arguments against the <!-- Page 173 -->alterability of
+the course of outward nature by prayer, on the question of miracles in
+general; for he is careful to say that &quot;the possibility of miracles,
+of a rare and unusual transcendence of the world order is not here in
+question&quot; (p. 38). It may be permitted me to suppose, however, that,
+if miracles were in question, the speaker who warns us &quot;that we must
+look for the heart of the absolute religion in that part of it which
+prescribes our moral and religious relations&quot; (p. 46) would not be
+disposed to advise those who had found the heart of Christianity to
+take much thought about its miraculous integument.</p>
+
+<p>My anonymous sermon will have nothing to do with such notions as
+these, and its preacher is not too polite, to say nothing of
+charitable, towards those who entertain them.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Scientific men, therefore, are perfectly right in asserting
+     that Christianity rests on miracles. If miracles never
+     happened, Christianity, in any sense which is not a mockery,
+     which does not make the term of none effect, has no reality.
+     I dwell on this because there is now an effort making to get
+     up a non-miraculous, invertebrate Christianity, which may
+     escape the ban of science. And I would warn you very
+     distinctly against this new contrivance. Christianity is
+     essentially miraculous, and falls to the ground if miracles
+     be impossible.</p></div>
+
+<p>Well, warning for warning. I venture to warn this preacher and those
+who, with him, persist in identifying Christianity with the
+miraculous, that such forms of Christianity are not only doomed to
+<!-- Page 174 -->fall to the ground; but that, within the last half century, they have
+been driving that way with continually accelerated velocity.</p>
+
+<p>The so-called religious world is given to a strange delusion. It
+fondly imagines that it possesses the monopoly of serious and constant
+reflection upon the terrible problems of existence; and that those who
+cannot accept its shibboleths are either mere Gallios, caring for none
+of these things, or libertines desiring to escape from the restraints
+of morality. It does not appear to have entered the imaginations of
+these people that, outside their pale and firmly resolved never to
+enter it, there are thousands of men, certainly not their inferiors in
+character, capacity, or knowledge of the questions at issue, who
+estimate those purely spiritual elements of the Christian faith of
+which the Bishop of Manchester speaks as highly as the Bishop does;
+but who will have nothing to do with the Christian Churches, because
+in their apprehension and for them, the profession of belief in the
+miraculous, on the evidence offered would be simply immoral.</p>
+
+<p>So far as my experience goes, men of science are neither better nor
+worse than the rest of the world. Occupation with the endlessly great
+parts of the universe does not necessarily involve greatness of
+character, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always
+produce humility. We have our full share of original sin; need,
+<!-- Page 175 -->greed, and vainglory beset us as they do other mortals; and our
+progress is, for the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the
+resultant of opposite divergencies from the straight path. But, for
+all that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit of science
+unquestionably bestows. It keeps the estimate of the value of evidence
+up to the proper mark; and we are constantly receiving lessons, and
+sometimes very sharp ones, on the nature of proof. Men of science will
+always act up to their standard of veracity, when mankind in general
+leave off sinning; but that standard appears to me to be higher among
+them than in any other class of the community.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know any body of scientific men who could be got to listen
+without the strongest expressions of disgusted repudiation to the
+exposition of a pretended scientific discovery, which had no better
+evidence to show for itself than the story of the devils entering a
+herd of swine, or of the fig-tree that was blasted for bearing no figs
+when &quot;it was not the season of figs.&quot; Whether such events are possible
+or impossible, no man can say; but scientific ethics can and does
+declare that the profession of belief in them, on the evidence of
+documents of unknown date and of unknown authorship, is immoral.
+Theological apologists who insist that morality will vanish if their
+dogmas are exploded, would do well to consider the fact that, in the
+matter of intellectual veracity, science is <!-- Page 176 -->already a long way ahead
+of the Churches; and that, in this particular, it is exerting an
+educational influence on mankind of which the Churches have shown
+themselves utterly incapable.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly that varying compound of some of the best and some of the
+worst elements of Paganism and Judaism, moulded in practice by the
+innate character of certain people of the Western world, which, since
+the second century, has assumed to itself the title of orthodox
+Christianity, &quot;rests on miracles&quot; and falls to the ground, not &quot;if
+miracles be impossible,&quot; but if those to which it is committed prove
+themselves unable to fulfil the conditions of honest belief. That this
+Christianity is doomed to fall is, to my mind, beyond a doubt; but its
+fall will be neither sudden nor speedy. The Church, with all the aid
+lent it by the secular arm, took many centuries to extirpate the open
+practice of pagan idolatry within its own fold; and those who have
+travelled in southern Europe will be aware that it has not extirpated
+the essence of such idolatry even yet. <i>Mutato nomine</i>, it is probable
+that there is as much sheer fetichism among the Roman populace now as
+there was eighteen hundred years ago; and if Marcus Antonius could
+descend from his horse and ascend the steps of the Ara C&oelig;li church
+about Twelfth Day, the only thing that need strike him would be the
+extremely contemptible character of the modern idols as works of art.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 177 -->Science will certainly neither ask for, nor receive, the aid of the
+secular arm. It will trust to the much better and more powerful help
+of that education in scientific truth and in the morals of assent,
+which is rendered as indispensable, as it is inevitable, by the
+permeation of practical life with the products and ideas of science.
+But no one who considers the present state of even the most developed
+countries can doubt that the scientific light that has come into the
+world will have to shine in the midst of darkness for a long time. The
+urban populations, driven into contact with science by trade and
+manufacture, will more and more receive it, while the <i>pagani</i> will
+lag behind. Let us hope that no Julian may arise among them to head a
+forlorn hope against the inevitable. Whatever happens, science may
+bide her time in patience and in confidence.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my &quot;Anonymous.&quot; I am afraid that if he represents any
+great party in the Church, the spirit of justice and reasonableness
+which animates the three bishops has as slender a chance of being
+imitated, on a large scale, as their common sense and their courtesy.
+For, not contented with misrepresenting science on its speculative
+side, &quot;Anonymous&quot; attacks its morality.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>For two whole years, investigations and conclusions which
+     would upset the theories of Darwin on the formation of coral
+     islands were actually suppressed, and that by the advice
+     even of those who accepted them, <i>for fear of upsetting the
+     faith and disturbing the judgment formed by the <!-- Page 178 -->multitude
+     on the scientific character&mdash;the infallibility&mdash;of the great
+     master</i>!</p></div>
+
+<p>So far as I know anything about the matters which are here referred
+to, the part of this passage which I have italicised is absolutely
+untrue. I believe that I am intimately acquainted with all Mr.
+Darwin's immediate scientific friends: and I say that no one of them,
+nor any other man of science known to me, ever could, or would, have
+given such advice to any one&mdash;if for no other reason than that, with
+the example of the most candid and patient listener to objections that
+ever lived fresh in their memories, they could not so grossly have at
+once violated their highest duty and dishonoured their friend.</p>
+
+<p>The charge thus brought by &quot;Anonymous&quot; affects the honour and the
+probity of men of science; if it is true, we have forfeited all claim
+to the confidence of the general public. In my belief it is utterly
+false, and its real effect will be to discredit those who are
+responsible for it. As is the way with slanders, it has grown by
+repetition. &quot;Anonymous&quot; is responsible for the peculiarly offensive
+form which it has taken in his hands; but he is not responsible for
+originating it. He has evidently been inspired by an article entitled
+&quot;A Great Lesson,&quot; published in the September number of this Review.
+Truly it is &quot;a great lesson,&quot; but not quite in the sense intended by
+the giver thereof.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 179 -->In the course of his doubtless well-meant admonitions, the Duke of
+Argyll commits himself to a greater number of statements which are
+demonstrably incorrect and which any one who ventured to write upon
+the subject ought to have known to be incorrect, than I have ever seen
+gathered together in so small a space.</p>
+
+<p>I submit a gathering from the rich store for the appreciation of the
+public.</p>
+
+<p>First:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Murray's new explanation of the structure of coral-reefs
+     and islands was communicated to the Royal Society of
+     Edinburgh in 1880, and supported with such a weight of facts
+     and such a close texture of reasoning, that no serious reply
+     has ever been attempted (p. 305).</p></div>
+
+<p>&quot;No serious reply has ever been attempted&quot;! I suppose that the Duke of
+Argyll may have heard of Professor Dana, whose years of labour devoted
+to corals and coral-reefs when he was naturalist of the American
+expedition under Commodore Wilkes, more than forty years ago, have
+ever since caused him to be recognised as an authority of the first
+rank on such subjects. Now does his Grace know, or does he not know,
+that, in the year 1885, Professor Dana published an elaborate paper
+&quot;On the Origin of Coral-Reefs and Islands,&quot; in which, after referring
+to a Presidential Address by the Director of the Geological Survey of
+Great Britain and Ireland delivered in 1883, in which special
+<!-- Page 180 -->attention is directed to Mr. Murray's views Professor Dana says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The existing state of doubt on the question has led the
+     writer to reconsider the earlier and later facts, and in the
+     following pages he gives his results.</p></div>
+
+<p>Professor Dana then devotes many pages of his very &quot;serious reply&quot; to
+a most admirable and weighty criticism of the objections which have at
+various times been raised to Mr. Darwin's doctrine, by Professor
+Semper, by Dr. Rein, and finally by Mr. Murray, and he states his
+final judgment as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>With the theory of abrasion and solution incompetent, all
+     the hypotheses of objectors to Darwin's theory are alike
+     weak; for all have made these processes their chief
+     reliance, whether appealing to a calcareous, or a volcanic,
+     or a mountain-peak basement for the structure. The
+     subsidence which the Darwinian theory requires has not been
+     opposed by the mention of any fact at variance with it, nor
+     by setting aside Darwin's arguments in its favour; and it
+     has found new support in the facts from the &quot;Challenger's&quot;
+     soundings off Tahiti, that had been put in array against it,
+     and strong corroboration in the facts from the West Indies.</p>
+
+<p>     Darwin's theory, therefore, remains as the theory that
+     accounts for the origin of reefs and islands.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30" ></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Be it understood that I express no opinion on the controverted points.
+I doubt if there are ten living men who, having a practical knowledge
+of what a coral-reef is, have endeavoured to master the very difficult
+biological and geological problems involved in their study. I happen
+to have <!-- Page 181 -->spent the best part of three years among coral-reefs and to
+have made that attempt; and, when Mr. Murray's work appeared, I said
+to myself that until I had two or three months to give to the renewed
+study of the subject in all its bearings, I must be content to remain
+in a condition of suspended judgment. In the meanwhile, the man who
+would be voted by common acclamation as the most competent person now
+living to act as umpire, has delivered the verdict I have quoted; and,
+to go no further, has fully justified the hesitation I and others may
+have felt about expressing an opinion. Under these circumstances, it
+seems to me to require a good deal of courage to say &quot;no serious reply
+has ever been attempted&quot;; and to chide the men of science, in lofty
+tones, for their &quot;reluctance to admit an error&quot; which is not admitted;
+and for their &quot;slow and sulky acquiescence&quot; in a conclusion which they
+have the gravest warranty for suspecting.</p>
+
+<p>Second:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Darwin himself had lived to hear of the new solution and,
+     with that splendid candour which was eminent in him his
+     mind, though now grown old in his own early convictions, was
+     at least ready to entertain it, and to confess that serious
+     doubts had been awakened as to the truth of his famous
+     theory (p. 305).</p></div>
+
+<p>I wish that Darwin's splendid candour could be conveyed by some
+description of spiritual &quot;microbe&quot; to those who write about him. I am
+not aware that Mr. Darwin ever entertained<!-- Page 182 --> &quot;serious doubts as to the
+truth of his famous theory&quot;; and there is tolerably good evidence to
+the contrary. The second edition of his work, published in 1876,
+proves that he entertained no such doubts then; a letter to Professor
+Semper, whose objections, in some respects, forestalled those of Mr.
+Murray, dated October 2, 1879, expresses his continued adherence to
+the opinion &quot;that the atolls and barrier reefs in the middle of the
+Pacific and Indian Oceans indicate subsidence&quot;; and the letter of my
+friend Professor Judd, printed at the end of this article (which I had
+perhaps better say Professor Judd had not seen) will prove that this
+opinion remained unaltered to the end of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Third:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>... Darwin's theory is a dream. It is not only unsound, but
+     it is in many respects the reverse of truth. With all his
+     conscientiousness, with all his caution, with all his powers
+     of observation, Darwin in this matter fell into errors as
+     profound as the abysses of the Pacific (p. 301).</p></div>
+
+<p>Really? It seems to me that, under the circumstances, it is pretty
+clear that these lines exhibit a lack of the qualities justly ascribed
+to Mr. Darwin, which plunges their author into a much deeper abyss,
+and one from which there is no hope of emergence.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>All the acclamations with which it was received were as the
+     shouts of an ignorant mob (p. 301).</p></div>
+
+<p><!-- Page 183 -->But surely it should be added that the Coryph&aelig;us of this ignorant
+mob, the fugleman of the shouts, was one of the most accomplished
+naturalists and geologists now living&mdash;the American Dana&mdash;who, after
+years of independent study extending over numerous reefs in the
+Pacific, gave his hearty assent to Darwin's views, and after all that
+had been said, deliberately reaffirmed that assent in the year 1885.</p>
+
+<p>Fifth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The overthrow of Darwin's speculation is only beginning to
+     be known. It has been whispered for some time. The cherished
+     dogma has been dropping very slowly out of sight (p. 301).</p></div>
+
+<p>Darwin's speculation may be right or wrong, but I submit that that
+which has not happened cannot even begin to be known, except by those
+who have miraculous gifts to which we poor scientific people do not
+aspire. The overthrow of Darwin's views may have been whispered by
+those who hoped for it; and they were perhaps wise in not raising
+their voices above a whisper. Incorrect statements, if made too
+loudly, are apt to bring about unpleasant consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Sixth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Murray's views, published in 1880, are said to have met with &quot;slow
+and sulky acquiescence&quot; (p. 305). I have proved that they cannot be
+said to have met with general acquiescence of any sort, whether quick
+and cheerful, or slow and sulky; and if this assertion is meant <!-- Page 184 -->to
+convey the impression that Mr. Murray's views have been ignored, that
+there has been a conspiracy of silence against them, it is utterly
+contrary to notorious fact.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Geikie's well-known &quot;Textbook of Geology&quot; was published in
+1882, and at pages 457-459 of that work there is a careful exposition
+of Mr. Murray's views. Moreover Professor Geikie has specially
+advocated them on other occasions,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31" ></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> notably in a long article on
+&quot;The Origin of Coral-Reefs,&quot; published in two numbers of &quot;Nature&quot; for
+1883, and in a Presidential Address delivered in the same year. If, in
+so short a time after the publication of his views, Mr. Murray could
+boast of a convert, so distinguished and influential as the Director
+of the Geological Survey, it seems to me that this wonderful
+<i>conspiration de silence</i> (which has about as much real existence as
+the Duke of Argyll's other bogie, &quot;The Reign of Terror &quot;) must have
+<i>ipso facto</i> collapsed. I wish that, when I was a young man, my
+endeavours to upset some prevalent errors had met with as speedy and
+effectual backing.</p>
+
+<p>Seventh:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>... Mr. John Murray was strongly advised against the
+     publication of his views in derogation of Darwin's
+     long-accepted <!-- Page 185 -->theory of the coral islands, and was actually
+     induced to delay it for two years. Yet the late Sir Wyville
+     Thomson, who was at the head of the naturalists of the
+     &quot;Challenger&quot; expedition, was himself convinced by Mr.
+     Murray's reasoning (p. 307).</p></div>
+
+<p>Clearly, then, it could not be Mr. Murray's official chief who gave
+him this advice. Who was it? And what was the exact nature of the
+advice given? Until we have some precise information on this head, I
+shall take leave to doubt whether this statement is more accurate than
+those which I have previously cited.</p>
+
+<p>Whether such advice was wise or foolish, just or immoral, depends
+entirely on the motive of the person who gave it. If he meant to
+suggest to Mr. Murray that it might be wise for a young and
+comparatively unknown man to walk warily, when he proposed to attack a
+generalisation based on many years' labour of one undoubtedly
+competent person, and fortified by the independent results of the many
+years' labour of another undoubtedly competent person; and even, if
+necessary, to take two whole years in fortifying his position, I think
+that such advice would have been sagacious and kind. I suppose that
+there are few working men of science who have not kept their ideas to
+themselves, while gathering and sifting evidence, for a much longer
+period than two years.</p>
+
+<p>If, on the other hand, Mr. Murray was advised to delay the publication
+of his criticisms, simply to <!-- Page 186 -->save Mr. Darwin's credit and to preserve
+some reputation for infallibility, which no one ever heard of, then I
+have no hesitation in declaring that his adviser was profoundly
+dishonest, as well as extremely foolish; and that, if he is a man of
+science, he has disgraced his calling.</p>
+
+<p>But, after all, this supposed scientific Achitophel has not yet made
+good the primary fact of his existence. Until the needful proof is
+forthcoming, I think I am justified in suspending my judgment as to
+whether he is much more than an anti-scientific myth. I leave it to
+the Duke of Argyll to judge of the extent of the obligation under
+which, for his own sake, he may lie to produce the evidence on which
+his aspersions of the honour of scientific men are based. I cannot
+pretend that we are seriously disturbed by charges which every one who
+is acquainted with the truth of the matter knows to be ridiculous; but
+mud has a habit of staining if it lies too long, and it is as well to
+have it brushed off as soon as may be.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the &quot;Great Lesson.&quot; It is followed by a &quot;Little Lesson,&quot;
+apparently directed against my infallibility&mdash;a doctrine about which I
+should be inclined to paraphrase Wilkes's remark to George the Third,
+when he declared that he, at any rate, was not a Wilkite. But I really
+should be glad to think that there are people who need the warning,
+because then it will be obvious that this raking up of an old story
+cannot have been <!-- Page 187 -->suggested by a mere fanatical desire to damage men
+of science. I can but rejoice, then, that these misguided enthusiasts,
+whose faith, in me has so far exceeded the bounds of reason, should be
+set right. But that &quot;want of finish&quot; in the matter of accuracy which
+so terribly mars the effect of the &quot;Great Lesson,&quot; is no less
+conspicuous in the case of the &quot;Little Lesson,&quot; and, instead of
+setting my too fervent disciples right, it will set them wrong.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Argyll, in telling the story of <i>Bathybius</i>, says that my
+mind was &quot;caught by this new and grand generalisation of the physical
+basis of life.&quot; I never have been guilty of a reclamation about
+anything to my credit, and I do not mean to be; but if there is any
+blame going, I do not choose to be relegated to a subordinate place
+when I have a claim to the first. The responsibility for the first
+description and the naming of <i>Bathybius</i> is mine and mine only. The
+paper on &quot;Some Organisms living at great Depths in the Atlantic
+Ocean,&quot; in which I drew attention to this substance, is to be found by
+the curious in the eighth volume of the &quot;Quarterly Journal of
+Microscopical Science,&quot; and was published in the year 1868. Whatever
+errors are contained in that paper are my own peculiar property; but
+neither at the meeting of the British Association in 1868, nor
+anywhere else, have I gone beyond what is there stated; except in so
+far that, at a long-subsequent <!-- Page 188 -->meeting of the Association, being
+importuned about the subject, I ventured to express, somewhat
+emphatically, the wish that the thing was at the bottom of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>What is meant by my being caught by a generalisation about the
+physical basis of life I do not know; still less can I understand the
+assertion that <i>Bathybius</i> was accepted because of its supposed
+harmony with Darwin's speculations. That which interested me in the
+matter was the apparent analogy of <i>Bathybius</i> with other well-known
+forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia of the Myxomycetes and the
+Rhizopods. Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the
+matter; and if <i>Bathybius</i> were brought up alive from the bottom of
+the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have the slightest bearing,
+that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations, or upon any of the
+disputed problems of biology. It would merely be one elementary
+organism the more added to the thousands already known.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this moment I was not aware of the universal favour with which
+<i>Bathybius</i> was received.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32" ></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Those simulators of an &quot;ignorant mob&quot;
+who, according to the Duke of Argyll, welcomed <!-- Page 189 -->Darwin's theory of
+coral-reefs, made no demonstration in my favour, unless his Grace
+includes Sir Wyville Thomson, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Bessels, and
+Professor Haeckel under that head. On the contrary, a sagacious friend
+of mine, than whom there was no more competent judge, the late Mr.
+George Busk, was not to be converted; while, long before the
+&quot;Challenger&quot; work, Ehrenberg wrote to me very sceptically; and I fully
+expected that that eminent man would favour me with pretty sharp
+criticism. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards, and nothing from
+him, that I know of, appeared. When Sir Wyville Thomson wrote to me a
+brief account of the results obtained on board the &quot;Challenger&quot; I sent
+this statement to &quot;Nature,&quot; in which journal it appeared the following
+week, without any further note or comment than was needful to explain
+the circumstances. In thus allowing judgment to go by default, I am
+afraid I showed a reckless and ungracious disregard for the feelings
+of the believers in my infallibility. No doubt I ought to have hedged
+and fenced and attenuated the effect of Sir Wyville Thomson's brief
+note in every possible way. Or perhaps I ought to have suppressed the
+note altogether, on the ground that it was a mere <i>ex parte</i>
+statement. My excuse is that, notwithstanding a large and abiding
+faith in human folly, I did not know then, any more than I know now,
+that there was anybody foolish enough to be unaware that the only
+people <!-- Page 190 -->scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do
+nothing; or that anybody, for whose opinion I cared, would not rather
+see me commit ten blunders than try to hide one.</p>
+
+<p>Pending the production of further evidence, I hold that the existence
+of people who believe in the infallibility of men of science is as
+purely mythical as that of the evil counsellor who advised the
+withholding of the truth lest it should conflict with that belief.</p>
+
+<p>I venture to think, then, that the Duke of Argyll might have spared
+his &quot;Little Lesson&quot; as well as his &quot;Great Lesson&quot; with advantage. The
+paternal authority who whips the child for sins he has not committed
+does not strengthen his moral influence&mdash;rather excites contempt and
+repugnance. And if, as would seem from this and former monitory
+allocutions which have been addressed to us, the Duke aspires to the
+position of censor, or spiritual director, in relation to the men who
+are doing the work of physical science, he really must get up his
+facts better. There will be an end to all chance of our kissing the
+rod if his Grace goes wrong a third time. He must not say again that
+&quot;no serious reply has been attempted&quot; to a view which was discussed
+and repudiated, two years before, by one of the highest extant
+authorities on the subject; he must not say that Darwin accepted that
+which it can be proved he did not accept; he must not say that a
+doctrine <!-- Page 191 -->has dropped into the abyss when it is quite obviously alive
+and kicking at the surface; he must not assimilate a man like
+Professor Dana to the components of an &quot;ignorant mob&quot;; he must not say
+that things are beginning to be known which are not known at all; he
+must not say that &quot;slow and sulky acquiescence&quot; has been given to that
+which cannot yet boast of general acquiescence of any kind; he must
+not suggest that a view which has been publicly advocated by the
+Director of the Geological Survey and no less publicly discussed by
+many other authoritative writers has been intentionally and
+systematically ignored; he must not ascribe ill motives for a course
+of action which is the only proper one; and finally, if any one but
+myself were interested, I should say that he had better not waste his
+time in raking up the errors of those whose lives have been occupied,
+not in talking about science, but in toiling, sometimes with success
+and sometimes with failure, to get some real work done.</p>
+
+<p>The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their
+readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge
+these inevitable lapses. The Duke of Argyll has now a splendid
+opportunity for proving to the world in which of these categories it
+is hereafter to rank him.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>DEAR PROFESSOR HUXLEY,&mdash;A short time before Mr. Darwin's death, I had
+a conversation <!-- Page 192 -->with, him concerning the observations which had been
+made by Mr. Murray upon coral-reefs, and the speculations which had
+been founded upon those observations. I found that Mr. Darwin had very
+carefully considered the whole subject, and that while, on the one
+hand, he did not regard the actual facts recorded by Mr. Murray as
+absolutely inconsistent with his own theory of subsidence, on the
+other hand, he did not believe that they necessitated or supported the
+hypothesis advanced by Mr. Murray. Mr. Darwin's attitude, as I
+understood it, towards Mr. Murray's objections to the theory of
+subsidence was exactly similar to that maintained by him with respect
+to Professor Semper's criticism, which was of a very similar
+character; and his position with regard to the whole question was
+almost identical with that subsequently so clearly defined by
+Professor Dana in his well-known articles published in the &quot;American
+Journal of Science&quot; for 1885.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to imagine how any one, acquainted with the scientific
+literature of the last seven years, could possibly suggest that Mr.
+Murray's memoir published in 1880 had failed to secure a due amount of
+attention. Mr. Murray, by his position in the &quot;Challenger&quot; office,
+occupied an exceptionally favourable position for making his views
+widely known; and he had, moreover, the singular good fortune to
+secure from the first the advocacy of so able and brilliant a writer
+<!-- Page 193 -->as Professor Archibald Geikie, who in a special discourse and in
+several treatises on geology and physical geology very strongly
+supported the new theory. It would be an endless task to attempt to
+give references to the various scientific journals which have
+discussed the subject, but I may add that every treatise on geology
+which has been published, since Mr. Murray's views were made known,
+has dealt with his observations at considerable length. This is true
+of Professor A.H. Green's &quot;Physical Geology,&quot; published in 1882; of
+Professor Prestwich's &quot;Geology, Chemical and Physical&quot;; and of
+Professor James Geikie's &quot;Outlines of Geology,&quot; published in 1886.
+Similar prominence is given to the subject in De Lapparent's &quot;Trait&eacute;
+de G&eacute;ologie,&quot; published in 1885, and in Credner's &quot;Elemente der
+Geologie,&quot; which has appeared during the present year. If this be a
+&quot;conspiracy of silence,&quot; where, alas! can the geological speculator
+seek for fame?&mdash;Yours very truly,</p>
+<p class="right">JOHN W. JUDD.</p>
+
+<p><i>October 10, 1887.</i></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>The Advance of Science</i>. Three sermons preached in
+Manchester Cathedral on Sunday, September 4, 1887, during the meeting
+of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, by the
+Bishop of Carlisle, the Bishop of Bedford, and the Bishop of
+Manchester.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Reprinted in Vol. IV. of this collection.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>American Journal of Science</i>, 1885, p. 190.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Professor Geikie, however, though a strong, is a fair
+and candid advocate. He says of Darwin's theory, &quot;That it may be
+possibly true, in some instances, may be readily granted.&quot; For
+Professor Geikie, then, it is not yet over-thrown&mdash;still less a
+dream.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> I find, moreover, that I specially warned my readers
+against hasty judgment. After stating the facts of observation, I add,
+&quot;I have, hitherto, said nothing about their meaning, as, in an inquiry
+so difficult and fraught with interest as this, it seems to me to be
+in the highest degree important to keep the questions of fact and the
+questions of interpretation well apart&quot; (p. 210).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V" ></a><!-- Page 194 -->V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS</h3>
+
+<h4>[1889]</h4>
+
+
+<p>Charles, or, more properly, Karl, King of the Franks, consecrated
+Roman Emperor in St. Peter's on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, and known to
+posterity as the Great (chiefly by his agglutinative Gallicised
+denomination, of Charlemagne), was a man great in all ways, physically
+and mentally. Within a couple of centuries after his death Charlemagne
+became the centre of innumerable legends; and the myth-making process
+does not seem to have been sensibly interfered with by the existence
+of sober and truthful histories of the Emperor and of the times which
+immediately preceded and followed his reign by a contemporary writer
+who occupied a high and confidential position in his court, and in
+that of his successor. This was one Eginhard, or Einhard, who appears
+to have been born about A.D. 770, and spent his youth at the court,
+being educated along with Charles's sons. There is excellent
+contemporary testimony not only to Eginhard's <!-- Page 195 -->existence, but to his
+abilities, and to the place which he occupied in the circle of the
+intimate friends of the great ruler whose life he subsequently wrote.
+In fact, there is as good evidence of Eginhard's existence, of his
+official position, and of his being the author of the chief works
+attributed to him, as can reasonably be expected in the case of a man
+who lived more than a thousand years ago, and was neither a great king
+nor a great warrior. The works are&mdash;1. &quot;The Life of the Emperor Karl.&quot;
+2. &quot;The Annals of the Franks.&quot; 3. &quot;Letters.&quot; 4. &quot;The History of the
+Translation of the Blessed Martyrs of Christ, SS. Marcellinus and
+Petrus.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is to the last, as one of the most singular and interesting records
+of the period during which the Roman world passed into that of the
+Middle Ages, that I wish to direct attention.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33" ></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> It was written in
+the ninth century, somewhere, apparently, about the year 830, when
+Eginhard, ailing in health and weary of political life, had withdrawn
+to the monastery of Seligenstadt, of which he was the founder. A
+manuscript copy of the work, made in the tenth century, and once the
+property of the monastery of St. Bavon on the Scheldt, of which
+Eginhard was Abbot, is still extant, and there is no reason to believe
+that, in <!-- Page 196 -->this copy, the original has been in any way interpolated or
+otherwise tampered with. The main features of the strange story
+contained in the &quot;Historia Translationis&quot; are set forth in the
+following pages, in which, in regard to all matters of importance, I
+shall adhere as closely as possible to Eginhard's own words.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>While I was still at Court, busied with secular affairs, I
+     often thought of the leisure which I hoped one day to enjoy
+     in a solitary place, far away from the crowd, with which the
+     liberality of Prince Louis, whom I then served, had provided
+     me. This place is situated in that part of Germany which
+     lies between the Neckar and the Maine,<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34" ></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> and is nowadays
+     called the Odenwald by those who live in and about it. And
+     here having built, according to my capacity and resources,
+     not only houses and permanent dwellings, but also a basilica
+     fitted for the performance of divine service and of no mean
+     style of construction, I began to think to what saint or
+     martyr I could best dedicate it. A good deal of time had
+     passed while my thoughts fluctuated about this matter, when
+     it happened that a certain deacon of the Roman Church, named
+     Deusdona, arrived at the Court for the purpose of seeking
+     the favour of the King in some affairs in which he was
+     interested. He remained some time; and then, having
+     transacted his business, he was about to return to Rome,
+     when one day, moved by courtesy to a stranger, we invited
+     him to a modest refection; and while talking of many things
+     at table, mention was made of the translation of the body of
+     the blessed Sebastian,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35" ></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> and of the <!-- Page 197 -->neglected tombs of
+     the martyrs, of which there is such a prodigious number at
+     Rome; and the conversation having turned towards the
+     dedication of our new basilica, I began to inquire how it
+     might be possible for me to obtain some of the true relics
+     of the saints which rest at Rome. He at first hesitated, and
+     declared that he did not know how that could be done. But
+     observing that I was both anxious and curious about the
+     subject, he promised to give me an answer some other day.</p>
+
+<p>     When I returned to the question some time afterwards, he
+     immediately drew from his bosom a paper, which he begged me
+     to read when I was alone, and to tell him what I was
+     disposed to think of that which was therein stated. I took
+     the paper and, as he desired, read it alone and in secret.
+     (Cap. i. 2, 3.)</p></div>
+
+<p>I shall have occasion to return to Deacon Deusdona's conditions, and
+to what happened after Eginhard's acceptance of them. Suffice it, for
+the present, to say that Eginhard's notary, Ratleicus (Ratleig), was
+despatched to Rome and succeeded in securing two bodies, supposed to
+be those of the holy martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus; and when he had
+got as far on his homeward journey as the Burgundian town of
+Solothurn, or Soleure,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36" ></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> notary Ratleig despatched to his master, at
+St. Bavon, a letter announcing the success of his mission.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>As soon as by reading it I was assured of the arrival of the
+     saints, I despatched a confidential messenger to Maestricht
+     to gather together priests, other clerics, and also laymen,
+     to go out to meet the coming saints as speedily as possible.
+     And he and his companions, having lost no <!-- Page 198 -->time, after a few
+     days met those who had charge of the saints at Solothurn.
+     Joined with them, and with a vast crowd of people who
+     gathered from all parts, singing hymns, and amidst great and
+     universal rejoicings, they travelled quickly to the city of
+     Argentoratum, which is now called Strasburg. Thence
+     embarking on the Rhine, they came to the place called
+     Portus,<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37" ></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and landing on the east bank of the river, at
+     the fifth station thence they arrived at Michilinstadt,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38" ></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a>
+     accompanied by an immense multitude, praising God. This
+     place is in that forest of Germany which in modern times is
+     called the Odenwald, and about six leagues from the Maine.
+     And here, having found a basilica recently built by me, but
+     not yet consecrated, they carried the sacred remains into it
+     and deposited them therein, as if it were to be their final
+     resting-place. As soon as all this was reported to me I
+     travelled thither as quickly as I could. (Cap. ii. 14.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Three days after Eginhard's arrival began the series of wonderful
+events which he narrates, and for which we have his personal
+guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of a servant
+of Ratleig, the notary, who, being set to watch the holy relics in the
+church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a
+vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came
+and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a
+voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had
+chosen another resting-place and desired to be transported thither
+without delay.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 199 -->Unfortunately, the saints seem to have forgotten to mention where
+they wished to go; and, with the most anxious desire to gratify their
+smallest wishes, Eginhard was naturally greatly perplexed what to do.
+While in this state of mind, he was one day contemplating his &quot;great
+and wonderful treasure, more precious than all the gold in the world,&quot;
+when it struck him that the chest in which the relics were contained
+was quite unworthy of its contents; and, after vespers, he gave orders
+to one of the sacristans to take the measure of the chest in order
+that a more fitting shrine might be constructed. The man, having
+lighted a wax candle and raised the pall which covered the relics, in
+order to carry out his master's orders, was astonished and terrified
+to observe that the chest was covered with a blood-like exudation
+(<i>loculum mirum in modum humore sanguineo undique distillantem</i>), and
+at once sent a message to Eginhard.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Then I and those priests who accompanied me beheld this
+     stupendous miracle, worthy of all admiration. For just as
+     when it is going to rain, pillars and slabs and marble
+     images exude moisture, and, as it were, sweat, so the chest
+     which contained the most sacred relics was found moist with
+     the blood exuding on all sides. (Cap. ii. 16.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Three days' fast was ordained in order that the meaning of the portent
+might be ascertained. All that happened, however, was that, at the end
+of that time, the &quot;blood,&quot; which had been exuding in drops all the
+while, dried up. Eginhard is careful <!-- Page 200 -->to say that the liquid &quot;had a
+saline taste, something like that of tears, and was thin as water
+though of the colour of true blood,&quot; and he clearly thinks this
+satisfactory evidence that it was blood.</p>
+
+<p>The same night, another servant had a vision, in which still more
+imperative orders for the removal of the relics were given; and, from
+that time forth, &quot;not a single night passed without one, two, or even
+three of our companions receiving revelations in dreams that the
+bodies of the saints were to be transferred from that place to
+another.&quot; At last a priest, Hildfrid, saw, in a dream, a venerable
+white-haired man in a priest's vestments, who bitterly reproached
+Eginhard for not obeying the repeated orders of the saints; and, upon
+this, the journey was commenced. Why Eginhard delayed obedience to
+these repeated visions so long does not appear. He does not say so, in
+so many words, but the general tenor of the narrative leads one to
+suppose that Mulinheim (afterwards Seligenstadt) is the &quot;solitary
+place&quot; in which he had built the church which awaited dedication. In
+that case, all the people about him would know that he desired that
+the saints should go there. If a glimmering of secular sense led him
+to be a little suspicious about the real cause of the unanimity of the
+visionary beings who manifested themselves to his <i>entourage</i>, in
+favour of moving on, he does not say so.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 201 -->At the end of the first day's journey, the precious relics were
+deposited in the church of St. Martin, in the village of Ostheim.
+Hither, a paralytic nun (<i>sanctimonialis qu&aelig;dam paralytica</i>) of the
+name of Ruodlang was brought, in a car, by her friends and relatives
+from a monastery a league off. She spent the night watching and
+praying by the bier of the saints; &quot;and health returning to all her
+members, on the morrow she went back to her place whence she came, on
+her feet, nobody supporting her, or in any way giving her assistance.&quot;
+(Cap. ii. 19.)</p>
+
+<p>On the second day, the relics were carried to Upper Mulinheim; and,
+finally, in accordance with the orders of the martyrs, deposited in
+the church of that place, which was therefore renamed Seligenstadt.
+Here, Daniel, a beggar boy of fifteen, and so bent that &quot;he could not
+look at the sky without lying on his back,&quot; collapsed and fell down
+during the celebration of the Mass. &quot;Thus he lay a long time, as if
+asleep, and all his limbs straightening and his flesh strengthening
+(<i>recepta firmitate nervorum</i>), he arose before our eyes, quite well.&quot;
+(Cap. ii. 20.)</p>
+
+<p>Some time afterwards an old man entered the church on his hands and
+knees, being unable to use his limbs properly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>He, in presence of all of us, by the power of God and the
+     merits of the blessed martyrs, in the same hour in which he
+     entered was so perfectly cured that he walked without so
+     <!-- Page 202 -->much as a stick. And he said that, though he had been deaf
+     for five years, his deafness had ceased along with the
+     palsy. (Cap. iii. 33.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Eginhard was now obliged to return to the Court at Aix-la-Chapelle,
+where his duties kept him through the winter; and he is careful to
+point out that the later miracles which he proceeds to speak of are
+known to him only at second hand. But, as he naturally observes,
+having seen such wonderful events with his own eyes, why should he
+doubt similar narrations when they are received from trustworthy
+sources?</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful stories these are indeed, but as they are, for the most
+part, of the same general character as those already recounted, they
+may be passed over. There is, however, an account of a possessed
+maiden which is worth attention. This is set forth in a memoir, the
+principal contents of which are the speeches of a demon who declared
+himself to possess the singular appellation of &quot;Wiggo,&quot; and revealed
+himself in the presence of many witnesses, before the altar, close to
+the relics of the blessed martyrs. It is noteworthy that the
+revelations appear to have been made in the shape of replies to the
+questions of the exorcising priest; and there is no means of judging
+how far the answers are, really, only the questions to which the
+patient replied yes or no.</p>
+
+<p>The possessed girl, about sixteen years of age, was brought by her
+parents to the basilica of the martyrs.<!-- Page 203 --></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When she approached the tomb containing the sacred bodies,
+     the priest, according to custom, read the formula of
+     exorcism over her head. When he began to ask how and when
+     the demon had entered her, she answered, not in the tongue
+     of the barbarians, which alone the girl knew, but in the
+     Roman tongue. And when the priest was astonished and asked
+     how she came to know Latin, when her parents, who stood by,
+     were wholly ignorant of it, &quot;Thou hast never seen my
+     parents,&quot; was the reply. To this the priest, &quot;Whence art
+     thou, then, if these are not thy parents?&quot; And the demon, by
+     the mouth of the girl, &quot;I am a follower and disciple of
+     Satan, and for a long time I was gatekeeper (janitor) in
+     hell; but for some years, along with eleven companions, I
+     have ravaged the kingdom of the Franks.&quot; (Cap. v. 49.)</p></div>
+
+<p>He then goes on to tell how they blasted the crops and scattered
+pestilence among beasts and men, because of the prevalent wickedness
+of the people.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39" ></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>
+
+<p>The enumeration of all these iniquities, in oratorical style, takes up
+a whole octavo page; and at the end it is stated, &quot;All these things
+the demon spoke in Latin by the mouth of the girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And when the priest imperatively ordered him to come out, &quot;I
+     shall go,&quot; said he, &quot;not in obedience to you, but on account
+     of the power of the saints, who do not allow me to remain
+     any longer.&quot; And having said this, he threw the girl down on
+     the floor and there compelled her to lie prostrate for a
+     time, as though she slumbered. After a little while,
+     however, he going away, the girl, by the power of Christ and
+     the merits of the blessed martyrs, as it were <!-- Page 204 -->awaking from
+     sleep, rose up quite well, to the astonishment of all
+     present; nor after the demon had gone out was she able to
+     speak Latin: so that it was plain enough that it was not she
+     who had spoken in that tongue, but the demon by her mouth.
+     (Cap. v. 51.)</p></div>
+
+<p>If the &quot;Historia Translationis&quot; contained nothing more than has been
+laid before the reader, up to this time, disbelief in the miracles of
+which it gives so precise and full a record might well be regarded as
+hyper-scepticism. It might fairly be said, Here you have a man, whose
+high character, acute intelligence, and large instruction are
+certified by eminent contemporaries; a man who stood high in the
+confidence of one of the greatest rulers of any age, and whose other
+works prove him to be an accurate and judicious narrator of ordinary
+events. This man tells you, in language which bears the stamp of
+sincerity, of things which happened within his own knowledge, or
+within that of persons in whose veracity he has entire confidence,
+while he appeals to his sovereign and the court as witnesses of
+others; what possible ground can there be for disbelieving him?</p>
+
+<p>Well, it is hard upon Eginhard to say so, but it is exactly the
+honesty and sincerity of the man which are his undoing as a witness to
+the miraculous. He himself makes it quite obvious that when his
+profound piety comes on the stage, his good sense and even his
+perception of right and wrong, make their exit. Let us go back to the
+point at which we left him, secretly perusing the<!-- Page 205 --> letter of Deacon
+Deusdona. As he tells us, its contents were</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>that he [the deacon] had many relics of saints at home, and
+     that he would give them to me if I would furnish him with
+     the means of returning to Rome; he had observed that I had
+     two mules, and if I would let him have one of them and would
+     despatch with him a confidential servant to take charge of
+     the relics, he would at once send them to me. This plausibly
+     expressed proposition pleased me, and I made up my mind to
+     test the value of the somewhat ambiguous promise at
+     once;<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40" ></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> so giving him the mule and money for his journey I
+     ordered my notary Ratleig (who already desired to go to Rome
+     to offer his devotions there) to go with him. Therefore,
+     having left Aix-la-Chapelle (where the Emperor and his Court
+     resided at the time) they came to Soissons. Here they spoke
+     with Hildoin, abbot of the monastery of St. Medardus,
+     because the said deacon had assured him that he had the
+     means of placing in his possession the body of the blessed
+     Tiburtius the Martyr. Attracted by which promises he
+     (Hildoin) sent with them a certain priest, Hunus by name, a
+     sharp man (<i>hominem callidum</i>), whom he ordered to receive
+     and bring back the body of the martyr in question. And so,
+     resuming their journey, they proceeded to Rome as fast as
+     they could. (Cap. i. 3.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, a servant of the notary, one Reginbald, fell ill of a
+tertian fever, and impeded the progress of the party. However, this
+piece of adversity had its sweet uses; for three days before they
+reached Rome, Reginbald had a vision. Somebody habited as a deacon
+appeared to him <!-- Page 206 -->and asked why his master was in such a hurry to get
+to Rome; and when Reginbald explained their business, this visionary
+deacon, who seems to have taken the measure of his brother in the
+flesh with some accuracy, told him not by any means to expect that
+Deusdona would fulfil his promises. Moreover, taking the servant by
+the hand, he led him to the top of a high mountain and, showing him
+Rome (where the man had never been), pointed out a church, adding
+&quot;Tell Ratleig the thing he wants is hidden there; let him get it as
+quickly as he can and go back to his master.&quot; By way of a sign that
+the order was authoritative, the servant was promised that, from that
+time forth, his fever should disappear. And as the fever did vanish to
+return no more, the faith of Eginhard's people in Deacon Deusdona
+naturally vanished with it (<i>et fidem diaconi promissis non
+haberent</i>). Nevertheless, they put up at the deacon's house near St.
+Peter ad Vincula. But time went on and no relics made their
+appearance, while the notary and the priest were put off with all
+sorts of excuses&mdash;the brother to whom the relics had been confided was
+gone to Beneventum and not expected back for some time, and so
+on&mdash;until Ratleig and Hunus began to despair, and were minded to
+return, <i>infecto negotio</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>But my notary, calling to mind his servant's dream, proposed
+     to his companion that they should go to the cemetery which
+     their host had talked about without him. So, having <!-- Page 207 -->found
+     and hired a guide, they went in the first place to the
+     basilica of the blessed Tiburtius in the Via Labicana, about
+     three thousand paces fron the town, and cautiously and
+     carefully inspected the tomb of that martyr, in order to
+     discover whether it could be opened without any one being
+     the wiser. Then they descended into the adjoining crypt, in
+     which the bodies of the blessed martyrs of Christ,
+     Marcellinus and Petrus, were buried; and, having made out
+     the nature of their tomb, they went away thinking their host
+     would not know what they had been about. But things fell out
+     differently from what they had imagined. (Cap. i. 7.)</p></div>
+
+<p>In fact, Deacon Deusdona, who doubtless kept an eye on his guests,
+knew all about their man&oelig;uvres and made haste to offer his services,
+in order that, &quot;with the help of God&quot; (<i>si Deus votis eorum favere
+dignaretur</i>), they should all work together. The deacon was evidently
+alarmed lest they should succeed without <i>his</i> help.</p>
+
+<p>So, by way of preparation for the contemplated <i>vol avec effraction</i>
+they fasted three days; and then, at night, without being seen, they
+betook themselves to the basilica of St. Tiburtius, and tried to break
+open the altar erected over his remains. But the marble proving too
+solid, they descended to the crypt, and, &quot;having evoked our Lord Jesus
+Christ and adored the holy martyrs,&quot; they proceeded to prise off the
+stone which covered the tomb, and thereby exposed the body of the most
+sacred martyr, Marcellinus, &quot;whose head rested on a marble tablet on
+which his name was inscribed.&quot; The body was taken <!-- Page 208 -->up with the
+greatest veneration, wrapped in a rich covering, and given over to the
+keeping of the deacon and his brother, Lunison, while the stone was
+replaced with such care that no sign of the theft remained.</p>
+
+<p>As sacrilegious proceedings of this kind were punishable with death by
+the Roman law, it seems not unnatural that Deacon Deusdona should have
+become uneasy, and have urged Ratleig to be satisfied with what he had
+got and be off with his spoils. But the notary having thus cleverly
+captured the blessed Marcellinus, thought it a pity he should be
+parted from the blessed Petrus, side by side with whom he had rested,
+for five hundred years and more, in the same sepulchre (as Eginhard
+pathetically observes); and the pious man could neither eat, drink,
+nor sleep, until he had compassed his desire to re-unite the saintly
+colleagues. This time, apparently in consequence of Deusdona's
+opposition to any further resurrectionist doings, he took counsel with
+a Greek monk, one Basil, and, accompanied by Hunus, but saying nothing
+to Deusdona, they committed another sacrilegious burglary, securing
+this time, not only the body of the blessed Petrus, but a quantity of
+dust, which they agreed the priest should take, and tell his employer
+that it was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius. How Deusdona was
+&quot;squared,&quot; and what he got for his not very valuable complicity in
+these transactions, does not appear. But <!-- Page 209 -->at last the relics were sent
+off in charge of Lunison, the brother of Deusdona, and the priest
+Hunus, as far as Pavia, while Ratleig stopped behind for a week to see
+if the robbery was discovered, and, presumably, to act as a blind, if
+any hue and cry was raised. But, as everything remained quiet, the
+notary betook himself to Pavia, where he found Lunison and Hunus
+awaiting his arrival. The notary's opinion of the character of his
+worthy colleagues, however, may be gathered from the fact that, having
+persuaded them to set out in advance along the road which he told them
+he was about to take, he immediately adopted another route, and,
+travelling by way of St. Maurice and the Lake of Geneva, eventually
+reached Soleure.</p>
+
+<p>Eginhard tells all this story with the most naive air of
+unconsciousness that there is anything remarkable about an abbot, and
+a high officer of state to boot, being an accessory, both before and
+after the fact, to a most gross and scandalous act of sacrilegious and
+burglarious robbery. And an amusing sequel to the story proves that,
+where relics were concerned, his friend Hildoin, another high
+ecclesiastical dignitary, was even less scrupulous than himself.</p>
+
+<p>On going to the palace early one morning, after the saints were safely
+bestowed at Seligenstadt, he found Hildoin waiting for an audience in
+the Emperor's antechamber, and began to talk to him about the miracle
+of the bloody exudation. In <!-- Page 210 -->the course of conversation, Eginhard
+happened to allude to the remarkable fineness of the garment of the
+blessed Marcellinus. Whereupon Abbot Hildoin observed (to Eginhard's
+stupefaction) that his observation was quite correct. Much astonished
+at this remark from a person who was supposed not to have seen the
+relics, Eginhard asked him how he knew that? Upon this, Hildoin saw
+that he had better make a clean breast of it, and he told the
+following story, which he had received from his priestly agent, Hunus.
+While Hunus and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Eginhard's notary,
+Hunus (according to his own account) had robbed the robbers. The
+relics were placed in a church; and a number of laymen and clerics, of
+whom Hunus was one, undertook to keep watch over them. One night,
+however, all the watchers, save the wide-awake Hunus, went to sleep;
+and then, according to the story which this &quot;sharp&quot; ecclesiastic
+foisted upon his patron,</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>it was borne in upon his mind that there must be some great
+     reason why all the people, except himself, had suddenly
+     become somnolent; and, determining to avail himself of the
+     opportunity thus offered (<i>oblata occasione utendum</i>), he
+     rose and, having lighted a candle, silently approached the
+     chests. Then, having burnt through the threads of the seals
+     with the flame of the candle, he quickly opened the chests,
+     which had no locks;<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41" ></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> and taking out portions of each of
+     the bodies <!-- Page 211 -->which were thus exposed, he closed the chests
+     and connected the burnt ends of the threads with the seals
+     again, so that they appeared not to have been touched; and,
+     no one having seen him, he returned to his place. (Cap. iii.
+     23.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Hildoin went on to tell Eginhard that Hunus at first declared to him
+that these purloined relics belonged to St. Tiburtius; but afterwards
+confessed, as a great secret, how he had come by them, and he wound up
+his discourse thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>They have a place of honour beside St. Medardus, where they
+     are worshipped with great veneration by all the people; but
+     whether we may keep them or not is for your judgment (Cap.
+     iii. 23.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Poor Eginhard was thrown into a state of great perturbation of mind by
+this revelation. An acquaintance of his had recently told him of a
+rumour that was spread about that Hunus had contrived to abstract
+<i>all</i> the remains of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus while Eginhard's
+agents were in a drunken sleep; and that, while the real relics were
+in Abbot Hildoin's hands at St. Medardus, the shrine at Seligenstadt
+contained nothing but a little dust. Though greatly annoyed by this
+&quot;execrable rumour, spread everywhere by the subtlety of the devil,&quot;
+Eginhard had doubtless comforted himself by his supposed knowledge of
+its falsity, and he only now discovered how considerable a foundation
+there was for the scandal. There was nothing for it but to insist upon
+the return of the stolen treasures. One would have <!-- Page 212 -->thought that the
+holy man, who had admitted himself to be knowingly a receiver of
+stolen goods, would have made instant restitution and begged only for
+absolution. But Eginhard intimates that he had very great difficulty
+in getting his brother abbot to see that even restitution was
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Hildoin's proceedings were not of such a nature as to lead any one to
+place implicit confidence in anything he might say; still less had his
+agent, priest Hunus, established much claim to confidence; and it is
+not surprising that Eginhard should have lost no time in summoning his
+notary and Lunison to his presence, in order that he might hear what
+they had to say about the business. They, however, at once protested
+that priest Hunus's story was a parcel of lies, and that after the
+relics left Rome no one had any opportunity of meddling with them.
+Moreover, Lunison, throwing himself at Eginhard's feet, confessed with
+many tears what actually took place. It will be remembered that after
+the body of St. Marcellinus was abstracted from its tomb, Ratleig
+deposited it in the house of Deusdona, in charge of the latter's
+brother, Lunison. But Hunus, being very much disappointed that he
+could not get hold of the body of St. Tiburtius, and afraid to go back
+to his abbot empty-handed, bribed Lunison with four pieces of gold and
+five of silver to give him access to the chest. This Lunison did, and
+Hunus helped himself to as much as <!-- Page 213 -->would fill a gallon measure (<i>vas
+sextarii mensuram</i>) of the sacred remains. Eginhard's indignation at
+the &quot;rapine&quot; of this &quot;nequissimus nebulo&quot; is exquisitely droll. It
+would appear that the adage about the receiver being as bad as the
+thief was not current in the ninth century.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now briefly sum up the history of the acquisition of the
+relics. Eginhard makes a contract with Deusdona for the delivery of
+certain relics which the latter says he possesses. Eginhard makes no
+inquiry how he came by them; otherwise, the transaction is innocent
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>Deusdona turns out to be a swindler, and has no relics. Thereupon
+Eginhard's agent, after due fasting and prayer, breaks open the tombs
+and helps himself.</p>
+
+<p>Eginhard discovers by the self-betrayal of his brother abbot, Hildoin,
+that portions of his relics have been stolen and conveyed to the
+latter. With much ado he succeeds in getting them back.</p>
+
+<p>Hildoin's agent, Hunus, in delivering these stolen goods to him, at
+first declared they were the relics of St. Tiburtius, which Hildoin
+desired him to obtain; but afterwards invented a story of their being
+the product of a theft, which the providential drowsiness of his
+companions enabled him to perpetrate, from the relics which Hildoin
+well knew were the property of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>Lunison, on the contrary, swears that all his story is false, and that
+he himself was bribed by<!-- Page 214 --> Hunus to allow him to steal what he pleased
+from the property confided to his own and his brother's care by their
+guest Ratleig. And the honest notary himself seems to have no
+hesitation about lying and stealing to any extent, where the
+acquisition of relics is the object in view.</p>
+
+<p>For a parallel to these transactions one must read a police report of
+the doings of a &quot;long firm&quot; or of a set of horse-coupers; yet Eginhard
+seems to be aware of nothing, but that he has been rather badly used
+by his friend Hildoin, and the &quot;nequissimus nebulo&quot; Hunus.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy for a modern Protestant, still less for any one who has
+the least tincture of scientific culture, whether physical or
+historical, to picture to himself the state of mind of a man of the
+ninth century, however cultivated, enlightened, and sincere he may
+have been. His deepest convictions, his most cherished hopes, were
+bound up with the belief in the miraculous. Life was a constant battle
+between saints and demons for the possession of the souls of men. The
+most superstitious among our modern countrymen turn to supernatural
+agencies only when natural causes seem insufficient; to Eginhard and
+his friends the supernatural was the rule; and the sufficiency of
+natural causes was allowed only when there was nothing to suggest
+others.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, it must be recollected that the possession of
+miracle-working relics was greatly <!-- Page 215 -->coveted, not only on high, but on
+very low grounds. To a man like Eginhard, the mere satisfaction of the
+religious sentiment was obviously a powerful attraction. But, more
+than, this, the possession of such a treasure was an immense practical
+advantage. If the saints were duly flattered and worshipped, there was
+no telling what benefits might result from their interposition on your
+behalf. For physical evils, access to the shrine was like the grant of
+the use of a universal pill and ointment manufactory; and pilgrimages
+thereto might suffice to cleanse the performers from any amount of
+sin. A letter to Lupus, subsequently abbot of Ferrara, written while
+Eginhard was smarting under the grief caused by the loss of his
+much-loved wife Imma, affords a striking insight into the current view
+of the relation between the glorified saints and their worshippers.
+The writer shows that he is anything but satisfied with the way in
+which he has been treated by the blessed martyrs whose remains he has
+taken such pains to &quot;convey&quot; to Seligenstadt, and to honour there as
+they would never have been honoured in their Roman obscurity.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It is an aggravation of my grief and a reopening of my
+     wound, that our vows have been of no avail, and that the
+     faith which we placed in the merits and intervention of the
+     martyrs has been utterly disappointed.</p></div>
+
+<p>We may admit, then, without impeachment of<!-- Page 216 --> Eginhard's sincerity, or
+of his honour under all ordinary circumstances, that when piety,
+self-interest, the glory of the Church in general, and that of the
+church at Seligenstadt in particular, all pulled one way, even the
+workaday principles of morality were disregarded; and, <i>a fortiori</i>,
+anything like proper investigation of the reality of alleged miracles
+was thrown to the winds.</p>
+
+<p>And if this was the condition of mind of such a man as Eginhard, what
+is it not legitimate to suppose may have been that of Deacon Deusdona,
+Lunison, Hunus, and Company, thieves and cheats by their own
+confession, or of the probably hysterical nun, or of the professional
+beggars, for whose incapacity to walk and straighten themselves there
+is no guarantee but their own? Who is to make sure that the exorcist
+of the demon Wiggo was not just such another priest as Hunus; and is
+it not at least possible, when Eginhard's servants dreamed, night
+after night, in such a curiously coincident fashion, that a careful
+inquirer might have found they were very anxious to please their
+master.</p>
+
+<p>Quite apart from deliberate and conscious fraud (which is a rarer
+thing than is often supposed), people, whose mythop&oelig;ic faculty is
+once stirred, are capable of saying the thing that is not, and of
+acting as they should not, to an extent which is hardly imaginable by
+persons who are not so easily affected by the contagion of blind
+<!-- Page 217 -->faith. There is no falsity so gross that honest men and, still more,
+virtuous women, anxious to promote a good cause, will not lend
+themselves to it without any clear consciousness of the moral bearings
+of what they are doing.</p>
+
+<p>The cases of miraculously-effected cures of which Eginhard is ocular
+witness appear to belong to classes of disease in which malingering is
+possible or hysteria presumable. Without modern means of diagnosis,
+the names given to them are quite worthless. One &quot;miracle,&quot; however,
+in which the patient, a woman, was cured by the mere sight of the
+church in which the relics of the blessed martyrs lay, is an
+unmistakable case of dislocation of the lower jaw; and it is obvious
+that, as not unfrequently happens in such accidents in weakly
+subjects, the jaws slipped suddenly back into place, perhaps in
+consequence of a jolt, as the woman rode towards the church. (Cap. v.
+53.)<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42" ></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>
+
+<p>There is also a good deal said about a very questionable blind
+man&mdash;one Albricus (Alberich?)&mdash;who, having been cured, not of his
+blindness, but of another disease under which he laboured, took up his
+quarters at Seligenstadt, and came out <!-- Page 218 -->as a prophet, inspired by the
+Archangel Gabriel. Eginhard intimates that his prophecies were
+fulfilled; but as he does not state exactly what they were, or how
+they were accomplished, the statement must be accepted with much
+caution. It is obvious that he was not the man to hesitate to &quot;ease&quot; a
+prophecy until it fitted, if the credit of the shrine of his favourite
+saints could be increased by such a procedure. There is no impeachment
+of his honour in the supposition. The logic of the matter is quite
+simple, if somewhat sophistical. The holiness of the church of the
+martyrs guarantees the reality of the appearance of the Archangel
+Gabriel there; and what the archangel says must be true. Therefore, if
+anything seem to be wrong, that must be the mistake of the
+transmitter; and, in justice to the archangel, it must be suppressed
+or set right. This sort of &quot;reconciliation&quot; is not unknown in quite
+modern times, and among people who would be very much shocked to be
+compared with a &quot;benighted papist&quot; of the ninth century.</p>
+
+<p>The readers of this essay are, I imagine, very largely composed of
+people who would be shocked to be regarded as anything but enlightened
+Protestants. It is not unlikely that those of them who have
+accompanied me thus far may be disposed to say, &quot;Well, this is all
+very amusing as a story, but what is the practical interest of it? We
+are not likely to believe in the miracles worked <!-- Page 219 -->by the spolia of SS.
+Marcellinus and Petrus, or by those of any other saints in the Roman
+Calendar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The practical interest is this: if you do not believe in these
+miracles recounted by a witness whose character and competency are
+firmly established, whose sincerity cannot be doubted, and who appeals
+to his sovereign and other contemporaries as witnesses of the truth of
+what he says, in a document of which a MS. copy exists, probably
+dating within a century of the author's death, why do you profess to
+believe in stories of a like character, which are found in documents
+of the dates and of the authorship of which nothing is certainly
+determined, and no known copies of which come within two or three
+centuries of the events they record? If it be true that the four
+Gospels and the Acts were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
+all that we know of these persons comes to nothing in comparison with
+our knowledge of Eginhard; and not only is there no proof that the
+traditional authors of these works wrote them, but very strong reasons
+to the contrary may be alleged. If, therefore, you refuse to believe
+that &quot;Wiggo&quot; was cast out of the possessed girl on Eginhard's
+authority, with what justice can you profess to believe that the
+legion of devils were cast out of the man among the tombs of the
+Gadarenes? And if, on the other hand, you accept Eginhard's evidence,
+why do you laugh at the supposed efficacy of relics and the
+saint-worship <!-- Page 220 -->of the modern Romanists? It cannot be pretended, in the
+face of all evidence, that the Jews of the year 30 A.D., or
+thereabouts, were less imbued with the belief in the supernatural than
+were the Franks of the year 800 A.D. The same influences were at work
+in each case, and it is only reasonable to suppose that the results
+were the same. If the evidence of Eginhard is insufficient to lead
+reasonable men to believe in the miracles he relates, <i>a fortiori</i> the
+evidence afforded by the Gospels and the Acts must be so.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43" ></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>
+
+<p>But it may be said that no serious critic denies the genuineness of
+the four great Pauline Epistles&mdash;Galatians, First and Second
+Corinthians, and Romans&mdash;and that in three out of these four Paul lays
+claim to the power of working miracles.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44" ></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Must we suppose,
+therefore, that the Apostle to the Gentiles has stated that which is
+false? But to how much does this so-called claim amount? It may mean
+much or little. Paul nowhere tells us what he did in this direction;
+and in his sore need to justify his assumption of apostleship against
+the sneers of his enemies, it is hardly likely that, if he had any
+very striking cases to bring forward, he would have neglected evidence
+so well <!-- Page 221 -->calculated to put them to shame. And, without the slightest
+impeachment of Paul's veracity, we must further remember that his
+strongly-marked mental characteristics, displayed in unmistakable
+fashion by these Epistles, are anything but those which would justify
+us in regarding him as a critical witness respecting matters of fact,
+or as a trustworthy interpreter of their significance. When a man
+testifies to a miracle, he not only states a fact, but he adds an
+interpretation of the fact. We may admit his evidence as to the
+former, and yet think his opinion as to the latter worthless. If
+Eginhard's calm and objective narrative of the historical events of
+his time is no guarantee for the soundness of his judgment where the
+supernatural is concerned, the heated rhetoric of the Apostle of the
+Gentiles, his absolute confidence in the &quot;inner light,&quot; and the
+extraordinary conceptions of the nature and requirements of logical
+proof which he betrays, in page after page of his Epistles, afford
+still less security.</p>
+
+<p>There is a comparatively modern man who shared to the full Paul's
+trust in the &quot;inner light,&quot; and who, though widely different from the
+fiery evangelist of Tarsus in various obvious particulars, yet, if I
+am not mistaken, shares his deepest characteristics. I speak of George
+Fox, who separated himself from the current Protestantism of England,
+in the seventeenth century, as Paul separated <!-- Page 222 -->himself from the
+Judaism of the first century, at the bidding of the &quot;inner light&quot;; who
+went through persecutions as serious as those which Paul enumerates;
+who was beaten, stoned, cast out for dead, imprisoned nine times,
+sometimes for long periods; who was in perils on land and perils at
+sea. George Fox was an even more widely-travelled missionary; while
+his success in founding congregations, and his energy in visiting
+them, not merely in Great Britain and Ireland and the West India
+Islands, but on the continent of Europe and that of North America,
+were no less remarkable. A few years after Fox began to preach, there
+were reckoned to be a thousand Friends in prison in the various gaols
+of England; at his death, less than fifty years after the foundation
+of the sect, there were 70,000 Quakers in the United Kingdom. The
+cheerfulness with which these people&mdash;women as well as men&mdash;underwent
+martyrdom in this country and in the New England States is one of the
+most remarkable facts in the history of religion.</p>
+
+<p>No one who reads the voluminous autobiography of &quot;Honest George&quot; can
+doubt the man's utter truthfulness; and though, in his multitudinous
+letters, he but rarely rises for above the incoherent commonplaces of
+a street preacher, there can be no question of his power as a speaker,
+nor any doubt as to the dignity and attractiveness of his personality,
+or of his possession of a large <!-- Page 223 -->amount of practical good sense and
+governing faculty.</p>
+
+<p>But that George Fox had full faith in his own powers as a
+miracle-worker, the following passage of his autobiography (to which
+others might he added) demonstrates:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Now after I was set at liberty from Nottingham gaol (where I
+     had been kept a prisoner a pretty long time) I travelled as
+     before, in the work of the Lord. And coming to Mansfield
+     Woodhouse, there was a distracted woman, under a doctor's
+     hand, with her hair let loose all about her ears; and he was
+     about to let her blood, she being first bound, and many
+     people being about her, holding her by violence; but he
+     could get no blood from her. And I desired them to unbind
+     her and let her alone; for they could not touch the spirit
+     in her by which she was tormented. So they did unbind her,
+     and I was moved to speak to her, and in the name of the Lord
+     to bid her be quiet and still. And she was so. And the
+     Lord's power settled her mind and she mended; and afterwards
+     received the truth and continued in it to her death. And the
+     Lord's name was honoured; to whom the glory of all His works
+     belongs. Many great and wonderful things were wrought by the
+     heavenly power in those days. For the Lord made bare his
+     omnipotent arm and manifested His power to the astonishment
+     of many; by the healing virtue whereof many have been
+     delivered from great infirmities, and the devils were made
+     subject through his name: of which particular instances
+     might be given beyond what this unbelieving age is able to
+     receive or bear.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45" ></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>It needs no long study of Fox's writings., however, to arrive at the
+conviction that the distinction <!-- Page 224 -->between subjective and objective
+verities had not the same place in his mind as it has in that of an
+ordinary mortal. When an ordinary person would say &quot;I thought so and
+so,&quot; or &quot;I made up my mind to do so and so,&quot; George Fox says, &quot;It was
+opened to me,&quot; or &quot;at the command of God I did so and so.&quot; &quot;Then at
+the command of God on the ninth day of the seventh month 1643 (Fox
+being just nineteen), I left my relations and brake off all
+familiarity or friendship with young or old.&quot; &quot;About the beginning of
+the year 1647 I was moved of the Lord to go into Darbyshire.&quot; Fox
+hears voices and he sees visions, some of which he brings before the
+reader with apocalyptic power in the simple and strong English, alike
+untutored and undefiled, of which, like John Bunyan, his contemporary,
+he was a master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And one morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over
+me and a temptation beset me; and I sate still. And it was said, <i>All
+things come by Nature</i>. And the elements and stars came over me; so
+that I was in a manner quite clouded with it.... And as I sate still
+under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true
+voice arose in me which said, <i>There is a living God who made all
+things</i>. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished away,
+and life rose over it all, and my heart was glad and I praised the
+living God&quot; (p. 13).</p>
+
+<p>If George Fox could speak, as he proves in this <!-- Page 225 -->and some other
+passages he could write, his astounding influence on the
+contemporaries of Milton and of Cromwell is no mystery. But this
+modern reproduction of the ancient prophet, with his &quot;Thus saith the
+Lord,&quot; &quot;This is the work of the Lord,&quot; steeped in supernaturalism and
+glorying in blind faith, is the mental antipodes of the philosopher,
+founded in naturalism and a fanatic for evidence, to whom these
+affirmations inevitably suggest the previous question: &quot;How do you
+know that the Lord saith it?&quot; &quot;How do you know that the Lord doeth
+it?&quot; and who is compelled to demand that rational ground for belief,
+without which, to the man of science, assent is merely an immoral
+pretence.</p>
+
+<p>And it is this rational ground of belief which the writers of the
+Gospels, no less than Paul, and Eginhard, and Fox, so little dream of
+offering that they would regard the demand for it as a kind of
+blasphemy.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> My citations are made from Teulet's <i>Einhardi omnia qu&aelig;
+extant opera</i>, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a biography of the
+author, a history of the text, with translations into French, and many
+valuable annotations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt
+and Baden.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were
+brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St. Medardus at
+Soissons.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Now included in Western Switzerland.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Probably, according to Teulet, the present
+Sandhoferfahrt, a little below the embouchure of the Neckar.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N.E. of
+Heidelberg.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite accusations
+against witches was that they committed just these enormities.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about
+the deacon, whose pledges he qualifies as <i>sponsiones incert&aelig;</i>. But,
+to be sure, he wrote after events which fully justified scepticism.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> The words are <i>scrinia sine clave</i>, which seems to mean
+&quot;having no key.&quot; But the circumstances forbid the idea of breaking
+open.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the &quot;vana ac
+superstitiosa pr&aelig;sumptio&quot; of the poor woman's companions in trying to
+alleviate her sufferings with &quot;herbs and frivolous incantations.&quot; Vain
+enough, no doubt, but the &quot;muliercul&aelig;&quot; might have returned the epithet
+&quot;superstitious&quot; with interest.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Of course there is nothing new in this argument: but it
+does not grow weaker by age. And the case of Eginhard is far more
+instructive than that of Augustine, because the former has so very
+frankly, though incidentally, revealed to us not only his own mental
+and moral habits, but those of the people about him.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> See 1 Cor. xii. 10-28; 2 Cor. vi. 12; Rom. xv. 19.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels,
+Sufferings, and Christian Experiences, &amp;c., of George Fox</i>, Ed. 1694,
+pp. 27, 28.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI" ></a><!-- Page 226 -->VI</h2>
+
+<h3>POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES</h3>
+
+<h4>[1891]</h4>
+
+
+<p>In the course of a discussion which has been going on during the last
+two years,<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46" ></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> it has been maintained by the defenders of
+ecclesiastical Christianity that the demonology of the books of the
+New Testament is an essential and integral part of the revelation of
+the nature of the spiritual world promulgated by Jesus of Nazareth.
+Indeed, if the historical accuracy of the Gospels and of the Acts of
+the Apostles is to be taken for granted, if the teachings of the
+Epistles are divinely inspired, and if the universal belief and
+practice of the primitive Church are the models which all later times
+must follow, there can be no doubt that those who accept the
+demonology are in the right. It is as plain as language can make it,
+that the writers of the Gospels believed in the existence of Satan and
+the subordinate ministers of evil as <!-- Page 227 -->strongly as they believed in
+that of God and the angels, and that they had an unhesitating faith in
+possession and in exorcism. No reader of the first three Gospels can
+hesitate to admit that, in the opinion of those persons among whom the
+traditions out of which they are compiled arose, Jesus held, and
+constantly acted upon, the same theory of the spiritual world. Nowhere
+do we find the slightest hint that he doubted the theory, or
+questioned the efficacy of the curative operations based upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, when such a story as that about the Gadarene swine is placed
+before us, the importance of the decision, whether it is to be
+accepted or rejected, cannot be over-estimated. If the demonological
+part of it is to be accepted, the authority of Jesus is unmistakably
+pledged to the demonological system current in Jud&aelig;a in the first
+century. The belief in devils who possess men and can be transferred
+from men to pigs, becomes as much a part of Christian dogma as any
+article of the creeds. If it is to be rejected, there are two
+alternative conclusions. Supposing the Gospels to be historically
+accurate, it follows that Jesus shared in the errors, respecting the
+nature of the spiritual world, prevalent in the age in which he lived
+and among the people of his nation. If, on the other hand, the Gospel
+traditions gives us only a popular version of the sayings and doings
+of Jesus, falsely coloured and distorted by the superstitious
+<!-- Page 228 -->imaginings of the minds through which it had passed, what guarantee
+have we that a similar unconscious falsification, in accordance with
+preconceived ideas, may not have taken place in respect of other
+reported sayings and doings? What is to prevent a conscientious
+inquirer from finding himself at last in a purely agnostic position
+with respect to the teachings of Jesus, and consequently with respect
+to the fundamentals of Christianity?</p>
+
+<p>In dealing with the question whether the Gadarene story was to be
+believed or not, I confined myself altogether to a discussion of the
+value of the evidence in its favour. And, as it was easy to prove that
+this consists of nothing more than three partially discrepant, but
+often verbally coincident, versions of an original, of the authorship
+of which nobody knows anything, it appeared to me that it was wholly
+worthless. Even if the event described had been probable, such
+evidence would have required corroboration; being grossly improbable,
+and involving acts questionable in their moral and legal aspect, the
+three accounts sank to the level of mere tales.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far, I am unable, even after the most careful revision, to find
+any flaw in my argument; and I incline to think none has been found by
+my critics&mdash;at least, if they have, they have kept the discovery to
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In another part of my treatment of the case I <!-- Page 229 -->have been less
+fortunate. I was careful to say that, for anything I could &quot;absolutely
+prove to the contrary,&quot; there might be in the universe demonic beings
+who could enter into and possess men, and even be transferred from
+them to pigs; and that I, for my part, could not venture to declare <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> that the existence of such entities was &quot;impossible.&quot; I was,
+however, no less careful to remark that I thought the evidence
+hitherto adduced in favour of the existence of such beings
+&quot;ridiculously insufficient&quot; to warrant the belief in them.</p>
+
+<p>To my surprise, this statement of what, after the closest reflection,
+I still conceive to be the right conclusion, has been hailed as a
+satisfactory admission by opponents, and lamented as a perilous
+concession by sympathisers. Indeed, the tone of the comments of some
+candid friends has been such that I began to suspect that I must be
+entering upon a process of retrogressive metamorphosis which might
+eventually give me a place among the respectabilities. The prospect,
+perhaps, ought to have pleased me; but I confess I felt something of
+the uneasiness of the tailor who said that, whenever a customer's
+circumference was either much less, or much more, than at the last
+measurement, he at once sent in his bill; and I was not consoled until
+I recollected that, thirteen years ago, in discussing Hume's essay on
+&quot;Miracles,&quot; I had quoted, with entire assent, the <!-- Page 230 -->following passage
+from his writings: &quot;Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly
+conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by
+any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning <i>&agrave; priori</i>.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47" ></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>
+
+<p>Now, it is certain that the existence of demons can be distinctly
+conceived. In fact, from the earliest times of which we have any
+record to the present day, the great majority of mankind have had
+extremely distinct conceptions of them, and their practical life has
+been more or less shaped by those conceptions. Further, the notion of
+the existence of such beings &quot;implies no contradiction.&quot; No doubt, in
+our experience, intelligence and volition are always found in
+connection with a certain material organisation, and never
+disconnected with it; while, by the hypothesis, demons have no such
+material substratum. But then, as everybody knows, the exact relation
+between mental and physical phenomena, even in ourselves, is the
+subject of endless dispute. We may all have our opinions as to whether
+mental phenomena have a substratum distinct from that which is assumed
+to underlie material phenomena, or not; though if any one thinks he
+has demonstrative evidence of either the existence or the
+non-existence of a &quot;soul,&quot; all I can say is, his notion <!-- Page 231 -->of
+demonstration differs from mine. But, if it be impossible to
+demonstrate the non-existence of a &quot;substance&quot; of mental
+phenomena&mdash;that is, of a soul&mdash;independent of material &quot;substance&quot;; if
+the idea of such a &quot;soul&quot; is &quot;intelligible and can be distinctly
+conceived,&quot; then it follows that it is not justifiable to talk of
+demons as &quot;impossibilities.&quot; The idea of their existence implies no
+more &quot;contradiction&quot; than does the idea of the existence of pathogenic
+microbes in the air. Indeed, the microbes constitute a tolerably exact
+physical analogue of the &quot;powers of the air&quot; of ancient belief.</p>
+
+<p>Strictly speaking, I am unaware of any thing that has a right to the
+title of an &quot;impossibility&quot; except a contradiction in terms. There are
+impossibilities logical, but none natural. A &quot;round square,&quot; a
+&quot;present past,&quot; &quot;two parallel lines that intersect,&quot; are
+impossibilities, because the ideas denoted by the predicates, <i>round,
+present, intersect</i>, are contradictory of the ideas denoted by the
+subjects, <i>square, past, parallel</i>. But walking on water, or turning
+water into wine, or procreation without male intervention, or raising
+the dead, are plainly not &quot;impossibilities&quot; in this sense.</p>
+
+<p>In the affirmation, that a man walked upon water, the idea of the
+subject is not contradictory of that in the predicate. Naturalists are
+familiar with insects which walk on water, and imagination has no more
+difficulty in putting a man in place of <!-- Page 232 -->the insect than it has in
+giving a man some of the attributes of a bird and making an angel of
+him; or in ascribing to him the ascensive tendencies of a balloon, as
+the &quot;levitationists&quot; do. Undoubtedly, there are very strong physical
+and biological arguments for thinking it extremely improbable that a
+man could be supported on the surface of the water as the insect is;
+or that his organisation could be compatible with the possession and
+use of wings; or that he could rise through the air without mechanical
+aid. Indeed, if we have any reason to believe that our present
+knowledge of the nature of things exhausts the possibilities of
+nature, we might properly say that the attributes of men are
+contradictory of walking on water, or floating in the air, and
+consequently that these acts are truly &quot;impossible&quot; for him. But it is
+sufficiently obvious, not only that we are at the beginning of our
+knowledge of nature, instead of having arrived at the end of it, but
+that the limitations of our faculties are such that we never can be in
+a position to set bounds to the possibilities of nature. We have
+knowledge of what is happening and of what has happened; of what will
+happen we have and can have no more than expectation, grounded on our
+more or less correct reading of past experience and prompted by the
+faith, begotten of that experience, that the order of nature in the
+future will resemble its order in the past.</p>
+
+<p>The same considerations apply to the other <!-- Page 233 -->examples of supposed
+miraculous events. The change of water into wine undoubtedly implies a
+contradiction, and is assuredly &quot;impossible,&quot; if we are permitted to
+assume that the &quot;elementary bodies&quot; of the chemists are, now and for
+ever, immutable. Not only, however, is a negative proposition of this
+kind incapable of proof, but modern chemistry is inclining towards the
+contrary doctrine. And if carbon can be got out of hydrogen or oxygen,
+the conversion of water into wine comes within range of scientific
+possibility&mdash;it becomes a mere question of molecular arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>As for virgin procreation, it is not only clearly imaginable, but
+modern biology recognises it as an everyday occurrence among some
+groups of animals. So with restoration to life after death. Certain
+animals, long as dry as mummies, and, to all appearance, as dead, when
+placed in proper conditions resume their vitality. It may be said that
+these creatures are not dead, but merely in a condition of suspended
+vitality. That, however, is only begging the question by making the
+incapacity for restoration to life part of the definition of death. In
+the absence of obvious lesions of some of the more important organs,
+it is no easy matter, even for experts, to say that an apparently dead
+man is incapable of restoration to life; and, in the recorded
+instances of such restoration, the want of any conclusive evidence
+that the man <!-- Page 234 -->was dead is even more remarkable than the insufficiency
+of the testimony as to his coming to life again.</p>
+
+<p>It may be urged, however, that there is, at any rate, one miracle
+certified by all three of the Synoptic Gospels which really does
+&quot;imply a contradiction,&quot; and is, therefore, &quot;impossible&quot; in the
+strictest sense of the word. This is the well-known story of the
+feeding of several thousand men, to the complete satisfaction of their
+hunger, by the distribution of a few loaves and fishes among them; the
+wondrousness of this already somewhat surprising performance being
+intensified by the assertion that the quantity of the fragments of the
+meal, left over, amounted to much more than the original store.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly, if the operation is stated in its most general form; if
+it is to be supposed that a certain quantity, or magnitude, was
+divided into many more parts than the whole contained; and that, after
+the subtraction of several thousands of such parts, the magnitude of
+the remainder amounted to more than the original magnitude, there does
+seem to be an <i>&agrave; priori</i> difficulty about accepting the proposition,
+seeing that it appears to be contradictory of the senses which we
+attach to the words &quot;whole&quot; and &quot;parts&quot; respectively. But this
+difficulty is removed if we reflect that we are not, in this case,
+dealing with magnitude in the abstract, or with &quot;whole&quot; and &quot;parts&quot; in
+<!-- Page 235 -->their mathematical sense, but with concrete things, many of which are
+known to possess the power of growing, or increasing in magnitude.
+They thus furnish us with a conception of growth which we may, in
+imagination, apply to loaves and fishes; just as we may, in
+imagination, apply the idea of wings to the idea of a man. It must be
+admitted that a number of sheep might be fed on a pasture, and yet
+there might be more grass on the pasture, when the sheep left it, than
+there was at first. We may generalise this and other such facts into a
+perfectly definite conception of the increase of food in excess of
+consumption; which thus becomes a possibility, the limitations of
+which are to be discovered only by experience. Therefore, if it is
+asserted that cooked food has been made to grow in excess of rapid
+consumption, that statement cannot logically be rejected as an <i>&agrave;
+priori</i> impossibility, however improbable experience of the
+capabilities of cooked food may justify us in holding it to be.</p>
+
+<p>On the strength of this undeniable improbability, however, we not only
+have a right to demand, but are morally bound to require, strong
+evidence in its favour before we even take it into serious
+consideration. But what is the evidence in this case? It is merely
+that of those three books,<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48" ></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> which also concur in testifying to the
+<!-- Page 236 -->truth of the monstrous legend of the herd of swine. In these three
+books, there are five accounts of a &quot;miraculous feeding,&quot; which fall
+into two groups. Three of the stories, obviously derived from some
+common source, state that five loaves and two fishes sufficed to feed
+five thousand persons, and that twelve baskets of fragments remained
+over. In the two others, also obviously derived from a common source,
+distinct from the preceding, seven loaves and a few small fishes are
+distributed to four thousand persons, and seven baskets of fragments
+are left.</p>
+
+<p>If we were dealing with secular records, I suppose no candid and
+competent student of history would entertain much doubt that the
+originals of the three stories and of the two are themselves merely
+divergent versions of some primitive story which existed before the
+three Synoptic gospels were compiled out of the body of traditions
+current about Jesus. This view of the case, however, is incompatible
+with a belief in the historical accuracy of the first and second
+gospels.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49" ></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> For these agree in making Jesus himself speak of both the
+&quot;four thousand&quot; and the &quot;five thousand&quot; miracle. &quot;When I brake the
+five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken
+pieces took ye up? They say unto him, twelve. And when the seven among
+the four <!-- Page 237 -->thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?
+And they say unto him, seven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Thus we are face to face with a dilemma the way of escape from which
+is not obvious. Either the &quot;four thousand&quot; and the &quot;five thousand&quot;
+stories are both historically true, and describe two separate events;
+or the first and second gospels testify to the very words of a
+conversation between Jesus and his disciples which cannot have been
+uttered.</p>
+
+<p>My choice between these alternatives is determined by no <i>&agrave; priori</i>
+speculations about the possibility or impossibility of such events as
+the feeding of the four or of the five thousand. But I ask myself the
+question, What evidence ought to be produced before I could feel
+justified in saying that I believed such an event to have occurred?
+That question is very easily answered. Proof must be given (1) of the
+weight of the loaves and fishes at starting; (2) of the distribution
+to 4-5,000 persons, without any additional supply, of this quantity
+and quality of food; (3) of the satisfaction of these people's
+appetites; (4) of the weight and quality of the fragments gathered up
+into the baskets. Whatever my present notions of probability and
+improbability may be, satisfactory testimony under these four heads
+would lead me to believe that they were erroneous; and I should accept
+the so-called miracle as a new and unexpected example of the
+possibilities of nature.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 238 -->But when, instead of such evidence, nothing is produced but two sets
+of discrepant stories, originating nobody knows how or when, among
+persons who could believe as firmly in devils which enter pigs, I
+confess that my feeling is one of astonishment that any one should
+expect a reasonable man to take such testimony seriously.</p>
+
+<p>I am anxious to bring about a clear understanding of the difference
+between &quot;impossibilities&quot; and &quot;improbabilities,&quot; because mistakes on
+this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesiastical apologists of
+the type of the late Cardinal Newman; acute sophists, who think it
+fitting to employ their intellects, as burglars employ dark lanterns
+for the discovery of other people's weak places, while they carefully
+keep the light away from their own position.</p>
+
+<p>When it is rightly stated, the Agnostic view of &quot;miracles&quot; is, in my
+judgment, unassailable. We are <i>not</i> justifiable in the <i>&agrave; priori</i>
+assertion that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to
+us, cannot change. In arguing about the miraculous, the assumption is
+illegitimate, because it involves the whole point in dispute.
+Furthermore, it is an assumption which takes us beyond the range of
+our faculties. Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us
+in anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the
+present and future. We find, practically, that expectations, <!-- Page 239 -->based
+upon careful observations of events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We
+should be foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through
+life. But, for all that, our highest and surest generalisations remain
+on the level of justifiable expectations; that is, very high
+probabilities. For my part, I am unable to conceive of an intelligence
+shaped on the model of that of man, however superior it might be,
+which could be any better off than our own in this respect; that is,
+which could possess logically justifiable grounds for certainty about
+the constancy of the order of things, and therefore be in a position
+to declare that such and such events are impossible. Some of the old
+mythologies recognised this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and
+Odin, there lay the unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or
+other, would crumple up them and the world they ruled to give place to
+a new order of things.</p>
+
+<p>I sincerely hope that I shall not be accused of Pyrrhonism, or of any
+desire to weaken the foundations of rational certainty. I have merely
+desired to point out that rational certainty is one thing, and talk
+about &quot;impossibilities,&quot; or &quot;violation of natural laws,&quot; another.
+Rational certainty rests upon two grounds&mdash;the one that the evidence
+in favour of a given statement is as good as it can be; the other that
+such evidence is plainly insufficient. In the former case, the
+statement is to be taken as true, in the latter as untrue; until
+something <!-- Page 240 -->arises to modify the verdict, which, however properly
+reached, may always be more or less wrong, the best information being
+never complete, and the best reasoning being liable to fallacy.</p>
+
+<p>To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual
+affairs, would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life,
+with due thought for the morrow, because no man can be sure he will be
+alive an hour hence. Such are the conditions imposed upon us by
+nature, and we have to make the best of them. And I think that the
+greatest mistake those of us who are interested in the progress of
+free thought can make is to overlook these limitations, and to deck
+ourselves with the dogmatic feathers which are the traditional
+adornment of our opponents. Let us be content with rational certainty,
+leaving irrational certainties to those who like to muddle their minds
+with them. I cannot see my way to say that demons are impossibilities;
+but I am not more certain about anything, than I am that the evidence
+tendered in favour of the demonology, of which the Gadarene story is a
+typical example, is utterly valueless. I cannot see my way to say that
+it is &quot;impossible&quot; that the hunger of thousands of men should be
+satisfied out of the food supplied by half-a-dozen loaves and a fish
+or two; but it seems to me monstrous that I should be asked to believe
+it on the faith of the five stories which testify to such an
+occurrence. It is true that the position that <!-- Page 241 -->miracles are
+&quot;impossible&quot; cannot be sustained. But I know of nothing which calls
+upon me to qualify the grave verdict of Hume: &quot;There is not to be
+found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of
+men, of such unquestioned goodness, education, and learning as to
+secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted
+integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to
+deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind
+as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any
+falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a
+public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render
+the detection unavoidable: <i>all which circumstances are requisite to
+give us a full assurance in the testimony of men</i>.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50" ></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The preceding paper called forth the following criticism
+     signed &quot;Agnosco,&quot; to which I append my reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>     While agreeing generally with Professor Huxley's remarks
+     respecting miracles, in &quot;The Agnostic Annual for 1892,&quot; it
+     has seemed to me that one of his arguments at least requires
+     qualification. The Professor, in maintaining that so-called
+     miraculous events are possible, although the evidence
+     adduced is not sufficient to render them probable, refers to
+     the possibility of changing water into wine by molecular
+     recomposition. He tells us that, &quot;if carbon can be got out
+     of hydrogen or oxygen, the conversion of water into wine
+     comes within range of scientific possibility.&quot; But in
+     maintaining <!-- Page 242 -->that miracles (so-called) have a <i>prospective</i>
+     possibility, Professor Huxley loses sight&mdash;at least, so it
+     appears to me&mdash;of the question of their <i>retrospective</i>
+     possibility. For, if it requires a certain degree of
+     knowledge and experience, yet far from having been attained,
+     to perform those acts which have been called miraculous, it
+     is not only improbable, but impossible likewise, that they
+     should have been done by men whose knowledge and experience
+     were considerably less than our own. It has seemed to me, in
+     fact, that this question of the retrospective possibility of
+     miracles is more important to us Rationalists, and, for the
+     matter of that, to Christians also, than the question of
+     their prospective possibility, with which Professor Huxley's
+     article mainly deals. Perhaps the Professor himself could
+     help those of us who think so, by giving us his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>     I am not sure that I fully appreciate the point raised by
+     &quot;Agnosco,&quot; nor the distinction between the prospective and
+     the retrospective &quot;possibility&quot; of such a miracle as the
+     conversion of water into wine. If we may contemplate such an
+     event as &quot;possible&quot; in London in the year 1900, it must, in
+     the same sense, have been &quot;possible&quot; in the year 30 (or
+     thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I
+     shall take great interest in the announcement of the
+     performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and,
+     if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall
+     accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without
+     hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing
+     the Cana story than I had before; simply because the
+     evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it
+     is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing.
+     To leave the safe ground of &quot;no evidence&quot; for speculations
+     about impossibilities, consequent upon the want of
+     scientific knowledge of the supposed workers of miracles,
+     appears to me to be a mistake; especially in view of the
+     orthodox contention that they possessed supernatural power
+     and supernatural knowledge.</p>
+<p class="right">T.H. HUXLEY.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> 1889-1891. See the next Essay (VII) and those which
+follow it.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding</i>, p. 5;
+1748. The passage is cited and discussed in my <i>Hume</i>, pp. 132, 133.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> The story in John vi. 5-14 is obviously derived from the
+&quot;five thousand&quot; narrative of the Synoptics.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Matthew xvi. 5-12; Mark viii. 14-21.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Hume, <i>Inquiry</i>, sec. X., part ii.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII" ></a><!-- Page 243 -->VII</h2>
+
+<h3>AGNOSTICISM</h3>
+
+<h4>[1889]</h4>
+
+
+<p>Within the last few months, the public has received much and varied
+information on the subject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their
+future. Agnosticism exercised the orators of the Church Congress at
+Manchester.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51" ></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> It has been furnished with a set of &quot;articles&quot; fewer,
+but not less rigid, and certainly not less consistent than the
+thirty-nine; its nature has been analysed, and its future severely
+predicted by the most eloquent of that prophetical school whose Samuel
+is Auguste Comte. It may still be a question, however, whether the
+public is as much the wiser as might be expected, considering all the
+trouble that has been taken to enlighten it. Not only are the three
+accounts of the agnostic position sadly out of harmony with one
+another, but I propose to show cause for my belief that all three
+<!-- Page 244 -->must be seriously questioned by any one who employs the term
+&quot;agnostic&quot; in the sense in which it was originally used. The learned
+Principal of King's College, who brought the topic of Agnosticism
+before the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of settling the
+business:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>But if this be so, for a man to urge, as an escape from this
+     article of belief, that he has no means of a scientific
+     knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is
+     irrelevant. His difference from Christians lies not in the
+     fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he
+     does not believe the authority on which they are stated. He
+     may prefer to call himself an Agnostic; but his real name is
+     an older one&mdash;he is an infidel; that is to say, an
+     unbeliever. The word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant
+     significance. Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and
+     it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say
+     plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52" ></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>So much of Dr. Wace's address either explicitly or implicitly concerns
+me, that I take upon myself to deal with it; but, in so doing, it must
+be understood that I speak for myself alone. I am not aware that there
+is any sect of Agnostics; <!-- Page 245 -->and if there be, I am not its acknowledged
+prophet or pope. I desire to leave to the Comtists the entire monopoly
+of the manufacture of imitation ecclesiasticism.</p>
+
+<p>Let us calmly and dispassionately consider Dr. Wace's appreciation of
+agnosticism. The agnostic, according to his view, is a person who says
+he has no means of attaining a scientific knowledge of the unseen
+world or of the future; by which somewhat loose phraseology Dr. Wace
+presumably means the theological unseen world and future. I cannot
+think this description happy, either in form or substance, but for the
+present it may pass. Dr. Wace continues, that it is not &quot;his
+difference from Christians.&quot; Are there then any Christians who say
+that they know nothing about the unseen world and the future? I was
+ignorant of the fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of
+a professional theologian, and I proceed to Dr. Wace's next
+proposition.</p>
+
+<p>The real state of the case, then, is that the agnostic &quot;does not
+believe the authority&quot; on which &quot;these things&quot; are stated, which
+authority is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fashioned &quot;infidel&quot; who
+is afraid to own to his right name. As &quot;Presbyter is priest writ
+large,&quot; so is &quot;agnostic&quot; the mere Greek equivalent for the Latin
+&quot;infidel.&quot; There is an attractive simplicity about this solution of
+the problem; and it has that advantage of being somewhat offensive to
+the <!-- Page 246 -->persons attacked, which is so dear to the less refined sort of
+controversialist. The agnostic says, &quot;I cannot find good evidence that
+so and so is true.&quot; &quot;Ah,&quot; says his adversary, seizing his opportunity,
+&quot;then you declare that Jesus Christ was untruthful, for he said so and
+so;&quot; a very telling method of rousing prejudice. But suppose that the
+value of the evidence as to what Jesus may have said and done, and as
+to the exact nature and scope of his authority, is just that which the
+agnostic finds it most difficult to determine. If I venture to doubt
+that the Duke of Wellington gave the command &quot;Up, Guards, and at 'em!&quot;
+at Waterloo, I do not think that even Dr. Wace would accuse me of
+disbelieving the Duke. Yet it would be just as reasonable to do this
+as to accuse any one of denying what Jesus said, before the
+preliminary question as to what he did say is settled.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the question as to what Jesus really said and did is strictly a
+scientific problem, which is capable of solution by no other methods
+than those practised by the historian and the literary critic. It is a
+problem of immense difficulty, which has occupied some of the best
+heads in Europe for the last century; and it is only of late years
+that their investigations have begun to converge towards one
+conclusion.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53" ></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 247 -->That kind of faith which Dr. Wace describes and lauds is of no use
+here. Indeed, he himself takes pains to destroy its evidential value.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What made the Mahommedan world? Trust and faith in the declarations
+and assurances of Mahommed. And what made the Christian world? Trust
+and faith in the declarations and assurances of Jesus Christ and His
+Apostles&quot; (l.c. p. 253). The triumphant tone of this imaginary
+catechism leads me to suspect that its author has hardly appreciated
+its full import. Presumably, Dr. Wace regards Mahommed as an
+unbeliever, or, to use the term which he prefers, infidel; and
+considers that his assurances have given rise to a vast delusion which
+has led, and is leading, millions of men straight to everlasting
+punishment. And this being so, the &quot;Trust and faith&quot; which have &quot;made
+the Mahommedan world,&quot; in just the same sense as they have<!-- Page 248 --> &quot;made the
+Christian world,&quot; must be trust and faith in falsehoods. No man who
+has studied history, or even attended to the occurrences of everyday
+life, can doubt the enormous practical value of trust and faith; but
+as little will he be inclined to deny that this practical value has
+not the least relation to the reality of the objects of that trust and
+faith. In examples of patient constancy of faith and of unswerving
+trust, the &quot;Acta Martyrum&quot; do not excel the annals of Babism.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54" ></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The discussion upon which we have now entered goes so thoroughly to
+the root of the whole matter; the question of the day is so
+completely, as the author of &quot;Robert Elsmere&quot; says, the value of
+testimony, that I shall offer no apology for following it out somewhat
+in detail; and, by way of giving substance to the argument, I shall
+base what I have to say upon a case, the consideration of which lies
+strictly within the province of natural science, and of that
+particular part of it known as the physiology and pathology of the
+nervous system.</p>
+
+<p>I find, in the second Gospel (chap. v.), a statement, to all
+appearance intended to have the same evidential value as any other
+contained in <!-- Page 249 -->that history. It is the well-known story of the devils
+who were cast out of a man, and ordered, or permitted, to enter into a
+herd of swine, to the great loss and damage of the innocent Gerasene,
+or Gadarene, pig owners. There can be no doubt that the narrator
+intends to convey to his readers his own conviction that this casting
+out and entering in were effected by the agency of Jesus of Nazareth;
+that, by speech and action, Jesus enforced this conviction; nor does
+any inkling of the legal and moral difficulties of the case manifest
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, everything that I know of physiological and
+pathological science leads me to entertain a very strong conviction
+that the phenomena ascribed to possession are as purely natural as
+those which constitute small-pox; everything that I know of
+anthropology leads me to think that the belief in demons and
+demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once universal
+superstition, and that its persistence, at the present time, is pretty
+much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence,
+and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails.
+Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the wanton
+destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of evil
+example. Again, the study of history, and especially of that of the
+fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, leaves no shadow of
+doubt <!-- Page 250 -->on my mind that the belief in the reality of possession and of
+witchcraft, justly based, alike by Catholics and Protestants, upon
+this and innumerable other passages in both the Old and New
+Testaments, gave rise, through the special influence of Christian
+ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions and judicial murders
+of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and children. And
+when I reflect that the record of a plain and simple declaration upon
+such an occasion as this, that the belief in witchcraft and possession
+is wicked nonsense, would have rendered the long agony of medi&aelig;val
+humanity impossible, I am prompted to reject, as dishonouring, the
+supposition that such declaration was withheld out of condescension to
+popular error.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man&quot; (Mark v. 8),<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55" ></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> are
+the words attributed to Jesus. If I declare, as I have no hesitation
+in doing, that I utterly disbelieve in the existence of &quot;unclean
+spirits,&quot; and, consequently, in the possibility of their &quot;coming
+forth&quot; out of a man, I suppose that Dr. Wace will tell me I am
+disregarding the testimony &quot;of our Lord.&quot; For, if these words were
+really used, the most resourceful of reconcilers can hardly venture to
+affirm that they are compatible with a disbelief &quot;in these things.&quot; As
+the learned and <!-- Page 251 -->fair-minded, as well as orthodox, Dr. Alexander
+remarks, in an editorial note to the article &quot;Demoniacs,&quot; in the
+&quot;Biblical Cyclop&aelig;dia&quot; (vol. i. p. 664, note):&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>... On the lowest grounds on which our Lord and His Apostles
+     can be placed they must, at least, be regarded as <i>honest</i>
+     men. Now, though honest speech does not require that words
+     should be used always and only in their etymological sense,
+     it does require that they should not be used so as to affirm
+     what the speaker knows to be false. Whilst, therefore, our
+     Lord and His Apostles might use the word
+     <ins title="Transliteration: daimonizesthai">&#948;&#945;&#953;&#956;&#959;&#957;&#8055;&#950;&#949;&#963;&#952;&#945;&#953;</ins>,
+     or the phrase,
+     <ins title="Transliteration: daimonion echein">&#948;&#945;&#953;&#956;&#8057;&#957;&#953;&#959;&#957; &#7956;&#967;&#949;&#953;&#957;</ins>
+     as a popular description of certain diseases, without giving
+     in to the belief which lay at the source of such a mode of
+     expression, they could not speak of demons entering into a
+     man, or being cast out of him, without pledging themselves
+     to the belief of an actual possession of the man by the
+     demons. (Campbell, <i>Prel. Diss.</i> vi. 1, 10.) If,
+     consequently, they did not hold this belief, they spoke not
+     as honest men.</p></div>
+
+<p>The story which we are considering does not rest on the authority of
+the second Gospel alone. The third confirms the second, especially in
+the matter of commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man
+(Luke viii. 29); and, although the first Gospel either gives a
+different version of the same story, or tells another of like kind,
+the essential point remains: &quot;If thou cast us out, send us away into
+the herd of swine. And He said unto them: Go!&quot; (Matt. viii. 31, 32).</p>
+
+<p>If the concurrent testimony of the three synoptics, then, is really
+sufficient to do away with all rational doubt as to a matter of fact
+of <!-- Page 252 -->the utmost practical and speculative importance&mdash;belief or
+disbelief in which may affect, and has affected, men's lives and their
+conduct towards other men, in the most serious way&mdash;then I am bound to
+believe that Jesus implicitly affirmed himself to possess a &quot;knowledge
+of the unseen world,&quot; which afforded full confirmation of the belief
+in demons and possession current among his contemporaries. If the
+story is true, the medi&aelig;val theory of the invisible world may be, and
+probably is, quite correct; and the witch-finders, from Sprenger to
+Hopkins and Mather, are much-maligned men.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, humanity, noting the frightful consequences of this
+belief; common sense, observing the futility of the evidence on which
+it is based, in all cases that have been properly investigated;
+science, more and more seeing its way to inclose all the phenomena of
+so-called &quot;possession&quot; within the domain of pathology, so far as they
+are not to be relegated to that of the police&mdash;all these powerful
+influences concur in warning us, at our peril, against accepting the
+belief without the most careful scrutiny of the authority on which it
+rests.</p>
+
+<p>I can discern no escape from this dilemma: either Jesus said what he
+is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former case, it is
+inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the &quot;unseen
+world&quot; should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon
+the authority of the synoptic Gospels. If their report on a matter of
+such stupendous and far-reaching practical import as this is
+untrustworthy, how can we be sure of its trustworthiness in other
+cases? The favourite &quot;earth,&quot; in which the hard-pressed reconciler
+takes refuge, that the Bible does not profess to teach science,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56" ></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> is
+stopped in this instance. For the question of the existence of demons
+and of possession by them, though it lies strictly within the province
+of science, is also of the deepest moral and religious significance.
+If physical and mental disorders are caused by demons, Gregory of
+Tours and his contemporaries rightly considered that relics and
+exorcists were more useful than doctors; the gravest questions arise
+as to the legal and moral responsibilities of persons inspired by
+demoniacal impulses; and our whole conception of the universe and of
+our relations to it becomes totally different from what it would be on
+the contrary hypothesis.<!-- Page 253 --><!-- Page 254 --></p>
+
+<p>The theory of life of an average medi&aelig;val Christian was as different
+from that of an average nineteenth-century Englishman as that of a
+West African negro is now, in these respects. The modern world is
+slowly, but surely, shaking off these and other monstrous survivals of
+savage delusions; and, whatever happens, it will not return to that
+wallowing in the mire. Until the contrary is proved, I venture to
+doubt whether, at this present moment, any Protestant theologian, who
+has a reputation to lose, will say that he believes the Gadarene
+story.</p>
+
+<p>The choice then lies between discrediting those who compiled the
+Gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple
+souls, thought to honour by preserving such traditions of the exercise
+of his authority over Satan's invisible world. This is the dilemma. No
+deep scholarship, nothing but a knowledge of the revised version (on
+which it is to be supposed all that mere scholarship can do has been
+done), with the application thereto of the commonest canons of common
+sense, is needful to enable us to make a choice between its
+alternatives. It is hardly doubtful that the story, as told in the
+first Gospel, is merely a version of that told in the second and
+third. Nevertheless, the discrepancies are serious and irreconcilable;
+and, on this ground <!-- Page 255 -->alone, a suspension of judgment, at the least, is
+called for. But there is a great deal more to be said. From the dawn
+of scientific biblical criticism until the present day, the evidence
+against the long-cherished notion that the three synoptic Gospels are
+the works of three independent authors, each prompted by Divine
+inspiration, has steadily accumulated, until, at the present time,
+there is no visible escape from the conclusion that each of the three
+is a compilation consisting of a groundwork common to all three&mdash;the
+threefold tradition; and of a superstructure, consisting, firstly, of
+matter common to it with one of the others, and, secondly, of matter
+special to each. The use of the terms &quot;groundwork&quot; and
+&quot;superstructure&quot; by no means implies that the latter must be of later
+date than the former. On the contrary, some parts of it may be, and
+probably are, older than some parts of the groundwork.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57" ></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p>
+
+<p>The story of the Gadarene swine belongs to the groundwork; at least,
+the essential part of it, in which the belief in demoniac possession
+is expressed, does; and therefore the compilers of the first, second,
+and third Gospels, whoever they <!-- Page 256 -->were, certainly accepted that belief
+(which, indeed, was universal among both Jews and pagans at that
+time), and attributed it to Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, do we know about the originator, or originators, of this
+groundwork&mdash;of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in
+Paley's phrase) agree upon&mdash;that we should allow their mere statements
+to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of
+exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad to
+be able to render to their Master?</p>
+
+<p>Absolutely nothing.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58" ></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> There is no proof, nothing more than a fair
+presumption, that any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in
+which we find it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the
+second century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the
+events recorded. And, between that time and the date of the oldest
+extant manuscripts of the Gospels, there is no telling what additions
+and alterations and interpolations may have been made. It may be said
+that this is all mere speculation, but it is a good deal more. As
+competent scholars and honest men, our revisers have felt compelled to
+point out that such things have happened even <!-- Page 257 -->since the date of the
+oldest known manuscripts. The oldest two copies of the second Gospel
+end with the 8th verse of the 16th chapter; the remaining twelve
+verses are spurious, and it is noteworthy that the maker of the
+addition has not hesitation to introduce a speech in which Jesus
+promises his disciples that &quot;in My name shall they cast out devils.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The other passage &quot;rejected to the margin&quot; is still more instructive.
+It is that touching apologue, with its profound ethical sense, of the
+woman taken in adultery&mdash;which, if internal evidence were an
+infallible guide, might well be affirmed to be a typical example of
+the teachings of Jesus. Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly, &quot;Most of
+the ancient authorities emit John vii. 53-viii. 11.&quot; Now let any
+reasonable man ask himself this question. If, after an approximate
+settlement of the canon of the New Testament, and even later than the
+fourth and fifth centuries, literary fabricators had the skill and the
+audacity to make such additions and interpolations as these, what may
+they have done when no one had thought of a canon; when oral
+tradition, still unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such
+written records as may have existed in the latter portion of the first
+century? Or, to take the other alternative, if those who gradually
+settled the canon did not know of the existence of the oldest codices
+which have come down to us; or if, <!-- Page 258 -->knowing them, they rejected their
+authority, what is to be thought of their competency as critics of the
+text?</p>
+
+<p>People who object to free criticism of the Christian Scriptures forget
+that they are what they are in virtue of very free criticism; unless
+the advocates of inspiration are prepared to affirm that the majority
+of influential ecclesiastics during several centuries were safeguarded
+against error. For, even granting that some books of the period were
+inspired, they were certainly few amongst many; and those who selected
+the canonical books, unless they themselves were also inspired, must
+be regarded in the light of mere critics, and, from the evidence they
+have left of their intellectual habits, very uncritical critics. When
+one thinks that such delicate questions as those involved fell into
+the hands of men like Papias (who believed in the famous millenarian
+grape story); of Iren&aelig;us with his &quot;reasons&quot; for the existence of only
+four Gospels; and of such calm and dispassionate judges as Tertullian,
+with his &quot;Credo quia impossibile&quot;: the marvel is that the selection
+which constitutes our New Testament is as free as it is from obviously
+objectionable matter. The apocryphal Gospels certainly deserve to be
+apocryphal; but one may suspect that a little more critical
+discrimination would have enlarged the Apocrypha not inconsiderably.</p>
+
+<p>At this point a very obvious objection arises <!-- Page 259 -->and deserves full and
+candid consideration. It may be said that critical scepticism carried
+to the length suggested is historical pyrrhonism; that if we are
+altogether to discredit an ancient or a modern historian, because he
+has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as well to give up
+paying any attention to history. It may be said, and with great
+justice, that Eginhard's &quot;Life of Charlemagne&quot; is none the less
+trustworthy because of the astounding revelation of credulity, of lack
+of judgment, and even of respect for the eighth commandment, which he
+has unconsciously made in the &quot;History of the Translation of the
+Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and Paul.&quot; Or, to go no further back than
+the last number of the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, surely that excellent
+lady, Miss Strickland, is not to be refused all credence, because of
+the myth about the second James's remains which she seems to have
+unconsciously invented.</p>
+
+<p>Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man alive
+whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent were proof
+that he had never invented and promulgated a myth. In the minds of all
+of us there are little places here and there, like the
+indistinguishable spots on a rock which give foothold to moss or
+stonecrop; on which, if the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to
+grow, without in the least degree affecting our accuracy or
+truthfulness elsewhere. Sir Walter Scott knew that he could not repeat
+a <!-- Page 260 -->story without, as he said, &quot;giving it a new hat and stick.&quot; Most of
+us differ from Sir Walter only in not knowing about this tendency of
+the mythop&oelig;ic faculty to break out unnoticed. But it is also
+perfectly true that the mythop&oelig;ic faculty is not equally active in
+all minds, nor in all regions and under all conditions of the same
+mind. David Hume was certainly not so liable to temptation as the
+Venerable Bede, or even as some recent historians who could be
+mentioned; and the most imaginative of debtors, if he owes five
+pounds, never makes an obligation to pay a hundred out of it. The rule
+of common sense is <i>prim&acirc; facie</i> to trust a witness in all matters, in
+which neither his self-interest, his passions, his prejudices, nor
+that love of the marvellous, which is inherent to a greater or less
+degree in all mankind, are strongly concerned; and, when they are
+involved, to require corroborative evidence in exact proportion to the
+contravention of probability by the thing testified.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably
+sceptical, if I say that the existence of demons who can be
+transferred from a man to a pig, does thus contravene probability. Let
+me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no <i>&agrave; priori</i> objection to
+offer. There are physical things, such as <i>t&aelig;ni&aelig;</i> and <i>trichin&aelig;</i>,
+which can be transferred from men to pigs, and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>, and which
+do undoubtedly produce most diabolical and <!-- Page 261 -->deadly effects on both.
+For anything I can absolutely prove to the contrary, there may be
+spiritual things capable of the same transmigration, with like
+effects. Moreover I am bound to add that perfectly truthful persons,
+for whom I have the greatest respect, believe in stories about spirits
+of the present day, quite as improbable as that we are considering.</p>
+
+<p>So I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show cause why
+these transferable devils should not exist; nor can I deny that, not
+merely the whole Roman Church, but many Wacean &quot;infidels&quot; of no mean
+repute, do honestly and firmly believe that the activity of such like
+demonic beings is in full swing in this year of grace 1889.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, as good Bishop Butler says, &quot;probability is the guide of
+life;&quot; and it seems to me that this is just one of the cases in which
+the canon of credibility and testimony, which I have ventured to lay
+down, has full force. So that, with the most entire respect for many
+(by no means for all) of our witnesses for the truth of demonology,
+ancient and modern, I conceive their evidence on this particular
+matter to be ridiculously insufficient to warrant their
+conclusion.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59" ></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 262 -->After what has been said I do not think that any sensible man, unless
+he happen to be angry, will accuse me of &quot;contradicting the Lord and
+His Apostles&quot; if I reiterate my total disbelief in the whole Gadarene
+story. But, if that story is discredited, all the other stories of
+demoniac possession fall under suspicion. And if the belief in demons
+and demoniac possession, which forms the sombre background of the
+whole picture of primitive Christianity, presented to us in the New
+Testament, is shaken, what is to be said, in any case, of the
+uncorroborated testimony of the Gospels with respect to &quot;the unseen
+world&quot;?</p>
+
+<p>I am not aware that I have been influenced by any more bias in regard
+to the Gadarene story than I have been in dealing with other cases of
+like kind the investigation of which has interested me. I was brought
+up in the strictest school of evangelical orthodoxy; and when I was
+old enough to think for myself, I started upon my journey of inquiry
+with little doubt about the general truth of what I had been taught;
+and with that feeling <!-- Page 263 -->of the unpleasantness of being called an
+&quot;infidel&quot; which, we are told, is so right and proper. Near my
+journey's end, I find myself in a condition of something more than
+mere doubt about these matters.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of other inquiries, I have had to do with fossil remains
+which looked quite plain at a distance, and became more and more
+indistinct as I tried to define their outline by close inspection.
+There was something there&mdash;something which, if I could win assurance
+about it, might mark a new epoch in the history of the earth; but,
+study as long as I might, certainty eluded my grasp. So had it been
+with me in my efforts to define the grand figure of Jesus as it lies
+in the primary strata of Christian literature. Is he the kindly,
+peaceful Christ depicted in the Catacombs? Or is he the stern Judge
+who frowns upon the altar of SS. Cosmas and Damianus? Or can he be
+rightly represented by the bleeding ascetic, broken down by physical
+pain, of too many medi&aelig;val pictures? Are we to accept the Jesus of the
+second, or the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, as the true Jesus? What did
+he really say and do; and how much that is attributed to him, in
+speech and action, is the embroidery of the various parties into which
+his followers tended to split themselves within twenty years of his
+death, when even the threefold tradition was only nascent?</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 264 -->If any one will answer these questions for me with something more to
+the point than feeble talk about the &quot;cowardice of agnosticism,&quot; I
+shall be deeply his debtor. Unless and until they are satisfactorily
+answered, I say of agnosticism in this matter, &quot;<i>J'y suis, et j'y
+reste</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But, as we have seen, it is asserted that I have no business to call
+myself an agnostic; that, if I am not a Christian I am an infidel; and
+that I ought to call myself by that name of &quot;unpleasant significance.&quot;
+Well, I do not care much what I am called by other people, and if I
+had at my side all those who, since the Christian era, have been
+called infidels by other folks, I could not desire better company. If
+these are my ancestors, I prefer, with the old Frank, to be with them
+wherever they are. But there are several points in Dr. Wace's
+contention which must be elucidated before I can even think of
+undertaking to carry out his wishes. I must, for instance, know what a
+Christian is. Now what is a Christian? By whose authority is the
+signification of that term defined? Is there any doubt that the
+immediate followers of Jesus, the &quot;sect of the Nazarenes,&quot; were
+strictly orthodox Jews differing from other Jews not more than the
+Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes differed from one another;
+in fact, only in the belief that the Messiah, for whom the rest of
+their nation waited, had come? Was not their chief, &quot;James, the
+brother of the Lord,&quot;<!-- Page 265 --> reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and
+Nazarene? At the famous conference which, according to the Acts, took
+place at Jerusalem, does not James declare that &quot;myriads&quot; of Jews,
+who, by that time, had become Nazarenes, were &quot;all zealous for the
+Law&quot;? Was not the name of &quot;Christian&quot; first used to denote the
+converts to the doctrine promulgated by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch?
+Does the subsequent history of Christianity leave any doubt that, from
+this time forth, the &quot;little rift within the lute&quot; caused by the new
+teaching, developed, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, grew wider and
+wider, until the two types of doctrines irreconcilably diverged? Did
+not the primitive Nazarenism, or Ebionism, develop into the
+Nazarenism, and Ebionism, and Elkasaitism of later ages, and finally
+die out in obscurity and condemnation, as damnable heresy; while the
+younger doctrine throve and pushed out its shoots into that endless
+variety of sects, of which the three strongest survivors are the Roman
+and Greek Churches and modern Protestantism?</p>
+
+<p>Singular state of things! If I were to profess the doctrine which was
+held by &quot;James, the brother of the Lord,&quot; and by every one of the
+&quot;myriads&quot; of his followers and co-religionists in Jerusalem up to
+twenty or thirty years after the Crucifixion (and one knows not how
+much later at Pella), I should be condemned, with unanimity, as an
+ebionising heretic by the Roman, Greek, and<!-- Page 266 --> Protestant Churches! And,
+probably, this hearty and unanimous condemnation of the creed, held by
+those who were in the closest personal relation with their Lord, is
+almost the only point upon which they would be cordially of one mind.
+On the other hand, though I hardly dare imagine such a thing, I very
+much fear that the &quot;pillars&quot; of the primitive Hierosolymitan Church
+would have considered Dr. Wace an infidel. No one can read the famous
+second chapter of Galatians and the book of Revelation without seeing
+how narrow was even Paul's escape from a similar fate. And, if
+ecclesiastical history is to be trusted, the thirty-nine articles, be
+they right or wrong, diverge from the primitive doctrine of the
+Nazarenes vastly more than even Pauline Christianity did.</p>
+
+<p>But, further than this, I have great difficulty in assuring myself
+that even James, &quot;the brother of the Lord,&quot; and his &quot;myriads&quot; of
+Nazarenes, properly represented the doctrines of their Master. For it
+is constantly asserted by our modern &quot;pillars&quot; that one of the chief
+features of the work of Jesus was the instauration of Religion by the
+abolition of what our sticklers for articles and liturgies, with,
+unconscious humour, call the narrow restrictions of the Law. Yet, if
+James knew this, how could the bitter controversy with Paul have
+arisen; and why did not one or the other side quote any of the various
+sayings of<!-- Page 267 --> Jesus, recorded in the Gospels, which directly bear on the
+question&mdash;sometimes, apparently, in opposite directions?</p>
+
+<p>So, if I am asked to call myself an &quot;infidel,&quot; I reply: To what
+doctrine do you ask me to be faithful? Is it that contained in the
+Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds? My firm belief is that the
+Nazarenes, say of the year 40, headed by James, would have stopped
+their ears and thought worthy of stoning the audacious man who
+propounded it to them. Is it contained in the so-called Apostle's
+Creed? I am pretty sure that even that would have created a
+recalcitrant commotion at Pella in the year 70, among the Nazarenes of
+Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers of Titus. And yet, if the
+unadulterated tradition of the teachings of &quot;the Nazarene&quot; were to be
+found anywhere, it surely should have been amidst those not very aged
+disciples who may have heard them as they were delivered.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, however sorry I may be to be unable to demonstrate that, if
+necessary, I should not be afraid to call myself an &quot;infidel,&quot; I
+cannot do it. &quot;Infidel&quot; is a term of reproach, which Christians and
+Mahommedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from
+them. If he had only thought of it, Dr. Wace might have used the term
+&quot;miscreant,&quot; which, with the same etymological signification, has the
+advantage of being still more &quot;unpleasant&quot; to the persons to whom <!-- Page 268 -->it
+is applied. But why should a man be expected to call himself a
+&quot;miscreant&quot; or an &quot;infidel&quot;? That St. Patrick &quot;had two birthdays
+because he was a twin&quot; is a reasonable and intelligible utterance
+beside that of the man who should declare himself to be an infidel on
+the ground of denying his own belief. It may be logically, if not
+ethically, defensible that a Christian should call a Mahommedan an
+infidel and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>; but, on Dr. Wace's principles, both ought to
+call themselves infidels, because each applies the term to the other.</p>
+
+<p>Now I am afraid that all the Mahommedan world would agree in
+reciprocating that appellation to Dr. Wace himself. I once visited the
+Hazar Mosque, the great University of Mohammedanism, in Cairo, in
+ignorance of the fact that I was unprovided with proper authority. A
+swarm of angry undergraduates, as I suppose I ought to call them, came
+buzzing about me and my guide; and if I had known Arabic, I suspect
+that &quot;dog of an infidel&quot; would have been by no means the most
+&quot;unpleasant&quot; of the epithets showered upon me, before I could explain
+and apologise for the mistake. If I had had the pleasure of Dr. Wace's
+company on that occasion, the undiscriminative followers of the
+Prophet would, I am afraid, have made no difference between us; not
+even if they had known that he was the head of an orthodox Christian
+seminary. And I have not the smallest <!-- Page 269 -->doubt that even one of the
+learned mollahs, if his grave courtesy would have permitted him to say
+anything offensive to men of another mode of belief, would have told
+us that he wondered we did not find it &quot;very unpleasant&quot; to disbelieve
+in the Prophet of Islam.</p>
+
+<p>From what precedes, I think it becomes sufficiently clear that Dr.
+Wace's account of the origin of the name of &quot;Agnostic&quot; is quite wrong.
+Indeed, I am bound to add that very slight effort to discover the
+truth would have convinced him that, as a matter of fact, the term
+arose otherwise. I am loath to go over an old story once more; but
+more than one object which I have in view will be served by telling it
+a little more fully than it has yet been told.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back nearly fifty years, I see myself as a boy, whose
+education has been interrupted, and who, intellectually, was left, for
+some years, altogether to his own devices. At that time, I was a
+voracious and omnivorous reader; a dreamer and speculator of the first
+water, well endowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and
+every subject, which is the blessed compensation of youth and
+inexperience. Among the books and essays, on all sorts of topics from
+metaphysics to heraldry, which I read at this time, two left indelible
+impressions on my mind. One was Guizot's &quot;History of Civilization,&quot;
+the other was Sir William Hamilton's essay &quot;On the Philosophy of <!-- Page 270 -->the
+Unconditioned,&quot; which I came upon, by chance, in an odd volume of the
+&quot;Edinburgh Review.&quot; The latter was certainly strange reading for a
+boy, and I could not possibly have understood a great deal of it;<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60" ></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a>
+nevertheless, I devoured it with avidity, and it stamped upon my mind
+the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and important of
+questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers; and that
+the limitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, renders
+real answers to such questions, not merely actually impossible, but
+theoretically inconceivable.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophy and history having laid hold of me in this eccentric
+fashion, have never loosened their grip. I have no pretension to be an
+expert in either subject; but the turn for philosophical and
+historical reading, which rendered Hamilton and Guizot attractive to
+me, has not only filled many lawful leisure hours, and still more
+sleepless ones, with the repose of changed mental occupation, but has
+not unfrequently disputed my proper work-time with my liege lady,
+Natural Science. In this way I have found it possible to cover a good
+deal of ground in the territory of philosophy; and all the more easily
+that I have never cared much about A's or B's opinions, but have
+rather sought to <!-- Page 271 -->know what answer he had to give to the questions I
+had to put to him&mdash;that of the limitation of possible knowledge being
+the chief. The ordinary examiner, with his &quot;State the views of
+So-and-so,&quot; would have floored me at any time. If he had said what do
+<i>you</i> think about any given problem, I might have got on fairly well.</p>
+
+<p>The reader who has had the patience to follow the enforced, but
+unwilling, egotism of this veritable history (especially if his
+studies have led him in the same direction), will now see why my mind
+steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant, so well
+stated by the latter in a sentence, which I have quoted elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure
+reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an
+organon for the enlargement [of knowledge], but as a discipline for
+its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only the
+modest merit of preventing error.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61" ></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>
+
+<p>When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I
+was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an
+idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I
+learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last,
+I came to the conclusion <!-- Page 272 -->that I had neither art nor part with any of
+these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of
+these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed
+from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain
+&quot;gnosis,&quot;&mdash;had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of
+existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong
+conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on
+my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that
+opinion. Like Dante,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>but, unlike Dante, I cannot add,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span>Che la diritta via era smarrita.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>On the contrary, I had, and have, the firmest conviction that I never
+left the &quot;verace via&quot;&mdash;the straight road; and that this road led
+nowhere else but into the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest.
+And though I have found leopards and lions in the path; though I have
+made abundant acquaintance with the hungry wolf, that &quot;with privy paw
+devours apace and nothing said,&quot; as another great poet says of the
+ravening beast; and though no friendly spectre has even yet offered
+his guidance, I was, and am, minded to go straight on, until I either
+come out on the other side of the <!-- Page 273 -->wood, or find there is no other
+side to it, at least, none attainable by me.</p>
+
+<p>This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place
+among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists,
+long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical
+Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was
+represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of
+my colleagues were <i>-ists</i> of one sort or another; and, however kind
+and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to
+cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings
+which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap
+in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally
+elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived
+to be the appropriate title of &quot;agnostic.&quot; It came into my head as
+suggestively antithetic to the &quot;gnostic&quot; of Church history, who
+professed to know so much about the very things of which I was
+ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our
+Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my
+great satisfaction, the term took; and when the <i>Spectator</i> had stood
+godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people,
+that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course,
+completely lulled.</p>
+
+<p>That is the history of the origin of the terms<!-- Page 274 --> &quot;agnostic&quot; and
+&quot;agnosticism&quot;; and it will be observed that it does not quite agree
+with the confident assertion of the reverend Principal of King's
+College, that &quot;the adoption of the term agnostic is only an attempt to
+shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion&quot; in relation to
+the Church and Christianity.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62" ></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The last objection (I rejoice as much as my readers must do, that it
+is the last) which I have to take to Dr. Wace's deliverance before the
+Church Congress arises, I am sorry to say, on a question of morality.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is, and it ought to be,&quot; authoritatively declares this official
+representative of Christian ethics, &quot;an unpleasant thing for a man to
+have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ&quot; (<i>l.c.</i>
+p. 254).</p>
+
+<p>Whether it is so depends, I imagine, a good deal on whether the man
+was brought up in a Christian household or not. I do not see why it
+should be &quot;unpleasant&quot; for a Mahommedan or Buddhist to say so. But
+that &quot;it ought to be&quot; unpleasant for any man to say anything which he
+sincerely, and after due deliberation, believes, is, to my mind, a
+proposition of the most profoundly immoral character. I verily believe
+that the great good which has been effected in the world by
+Christianity has been largely counteracted by the <!-- Page 275 -->pestilent doctrine
+on which all the Churches have insisted, that honest disbelief in
+their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offence, indeed a sin
+of the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future
+retribution as murder and robbery. If we could only see, in one view,
+the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the
+violations of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from
+this source along the course of the history of Christian nations, our
+worst imaginations of Hell would pale beside the vision.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand times, no! It ought <i>not</i> to be unpleasant to say that
+which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is
+painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind
+in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed,
+without erecting a sad concomitant of human weakness into something to
+be admired and cherished. The bravest of soldiers often, and very
+naturally, &quot;feel it unpleasant&quot; to go into action; but a court-martial
+which did its duty would make short work of the officer who
+promulgated the doctrine that his men <i>ought</i> to feel their duty
+unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>I am very well aware, as I suppose most thoughtful people are in these
+times, that the process of breaking away from old beliefs is extremely
+unpleasant; and I am much disposed to think that the encouragement,
+the consolation, and the peace afforded to earnest believers in even
+the <!-- Page 276 -->worst forms of Christianity are of great practical advantage to
+them. What deductions must be made from this gain on the score of the
+harm done to the citizen by the ascetic other-worldliness of logical
+Christianity; to the ruler, by the hatred, malice, and all
+uncharitableness of sectarian bigotry; to the legislator, by the
+spirit of exclusiveness and domination of those that count themselves
+pillars of orthodoxy; to the philosopher, by the restraints on the
+freedom of learning and teaching which every Church exercises, when it
+is strong enough; to the conscientious soul, by the introspective
+hunting after sins of the mint and cummin type, the fear of
+theological error, and the overpowering terror of possible damnation,
+which have accompanied the Churches like their shadow, I need not now
+consider; but they are assuredly not small. If agnostics lose heavily
+on the one side, they gain a good deal on the other. People who talk
+about the comforts of belief appear to forget its discomforts; they
+ignore the fact that the Christianity of the Churches is something
+more than faith in the ideal personality of Jesus, which they create
+for themselves, <i>plus</i> so much as can be carried into practice,
+without disorganising civil society, of the maxims of the Sermon on
+the Mount. Trip in morals or in doctrine (especially in doctrine),
+without due repentance or retractation, or fail to get properly
+baptized before you die, and a <i>pl&eacute;biscite</i> of the Christians of
+Europe, if <!-- Page 277 -->they were true to their creeds, would affirm your
+everlasting damnation by an immense majority.</p>
+
+<p>Preachers, orthodox and heterodox, din into our ears that the world
+cannot get on without faith of some sort. There is a sense in which
+that is as eminently as obviously true; there is another, in which, in
+my judgment, it is as eminently as obviously false, and it seems to me
+that the hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to oscillate between the
+false and the true meanings, without being aware of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite true that the ground of every one of our actions, and the
+validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of faith,
+which leads us to take the experience of the past as a safe guide in
+our dealings with the present and the future. From the nature of
+ratiocination, it is obvious that the axioms, on which it is based,
+cannot be demonstrated by ratiocination. It is also a trite
+observation that, in the business of life, we constantly take the most
+serious action upon evidence of an utterly insufficient character. But
+it is surely plain that faith is not necessarily entitled to dispense
+with ratiocination because ratiocination cannot dispense with faith as
+a starting-point; and that because we are often obliged, by the
+pressure of events, to act on very bad evidence, it does not follow
+that it is proper to act on such evidence when the pressure is absent.</p>
+
+<p>The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells <!-- Page 278 -->us that &quot;faith is the
+assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen.&quot; In the
+authorised version, &quot;substance&quot; stands for &quot;assurance,&quot; and &quot;evidence&quot;
+for &quot;proving.&quot; The question of the exact meaning of the two words,
+<ins title="Transliteration: hypostasis">&#8017;&#960;&#8001;&#963;&#964;&#945;&#963;&#953;&#987;</ins> and
+<ins title="Transliteration: elegchos">&#7956;&#955;&#949;&#947;&#967;&#959;&#987;</ins> affords a fine field of
+discussion for the scholar and the metaphysician. But I fancy we shall
+be not far from the mark if we take the writer to have had in his mind
+the profound psychological truth, that men constantly feel certain
+about things for which they strongly hope, but have no evidence, in
+the legal or logical sense of the word; and he calls this feeling
+&quot;faith.&quot; I may have the most absolute faith that a friend has not
+committed the crime of which he is accused. In the early days of
+English history, if my friend could have obtained a few more
+compurgators of a like robust faith, he would have been acquitted. At
+the present day, if I tendered myself as a witness on that score, the
+judge would tell me to stand down, and the youngest barrister would
+smile at my simplicity. Miserable indeed is the man who has not such
+faith in some of his fellow-men&mdash;only less miserable than the man who
+allows himself to forget that such faith is not, strictly speaking,
+evidence; and when his faith is disappointed, as will happen now and
+again, turns Timon and blames the universe for his own blunders. And
+so, if a man can find a friend, the hypostasis of all his hopes, the
+mirror of his <!-- Page 279 -->ethical ideal, in the Jesus of any, or all, of the
+Gospels, let him live by faith in that ideal. Who shall or can forbid
+him? But let him not delude himself with the notion that his faith is
+evidence of the objective reality of that in which he trusts. Such
+evidence is to be obtained only by the use of the methods of science,
+as applied to history and to literature, and it amounts at present to
+very little.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that Mr. Gladstone some time ago asked Mr. Laing if he
+could draw up a short summary of the negative creed; a body of
+negative propositions, which have so far been adopted on the negative
+side as to be what the Apostles' and other accepted creeds are on the
+positive; and Mr. Laing at once kindly obliged Mr. Gladstone with the
+desired articles&mdash;eight of them.</p>
+
+<p>If any one had preferred this request to me, I should have replied
+that, if he referred to agnostics, they have no creed; and, by the
+nature of the case, cannot have any. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a
+creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous
+application of a single principle. That principle is of great
+antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said,
+&quot;Try all things, hold fast by that which is good;&quot; it is the
+foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that
+every man should be <!-- Page 280 -->able to give a reason for the faith that is in
+him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental
+axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In
+matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take
+you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In
+matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain
+which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the
+agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not
+be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may
+have in store for him.</p>
+
+<p>The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary
+according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the
+general condition of science. That which is unproven to-day may be
+proven by the help of new discoveries to-morrow. The only negative
+fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable
+limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to
+have the mind always open to conviction. Agnostics who never fail in
+carrying out their principles are, I am afraid, as rare as other
+people of whom the same consistency can be truthfully predicated. But,
+if you were to meet with such a ph&oelig;nix and to tell him that you had
+discovered that two and two make five, he would patiently ask you to
+state your reasons for that conviction, and express his readiness to
+<!-- Page 281 -->agree with you if he found them satisfactory. The apostolic
+injunction to &quot;suffer fools gladly&quot; should be the rule of life of a
+true agnostic. I am deeply conscious how far I myself fall short of
+this ideal, but it is my personal conception of what agnostics ought
+to be.</p>
+
+<p>However, as I began by stating, I speak only for myself; and I do not
+dream of anathematizing and excommunicating Mr. Laing. But, when I
+consider his creed and compare it with the Athanasian, I think I have
+on the whole a clearer conception of the meaning of the latter.
+&quot;Polarity,&quot; in Article VIII, for example, is a word about which I
+heard a good deal in my youth, when &quot;Naturphilosophie&quot; was in fashion,
+and greatly did I suffer from it. For many years past, whenever I have
+met with &quot;polarity&quot; anywhere but in a discussion of some purely
+physical topic, such as magnetism, I have shut the book. Mr. Laing
+must excuse me if the force of habit was too much for me when I read
+his eighth article.</p>
+
+<p>And now, what is to be said to Mr. Harrison's remarkable deliverance
+&quot;On the future of agnosticism &quot;?<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63" ></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> I would that it were not my
+business to say anything, for I am afraid I can say nothing which
+shall manifest my great personal respect for this able writer, and for
+the zeal and energy with which he ever and anon galvanises the <!-- Page 282 -->weakly
+frame of Positivism until it looks, more than ever, like John Bunyan's
+Pope and Pagan rolled into one. There is a story often repeated, and I
+am afraid none the less mythical on that account, of a valiant and
+loud-voiced corporal in command of two full privates who, falling in
+with a regiment of the enemy in the dark, orders it to surrender under
+pain of instant annihilation by his force; and the enemy surrenders
+accordingly. I am always reminded of this tale when I read the
+positivist commands to the forces of Christianity and of Science; only
+the enemy show no more signs of intending to obey now than they have
+done any time these forty years.</p>
+
+<p>The allocution under consideration has a certain papal flavour. Mr.
+Harrison speaks with authority and not as one of the common scribes of
+the period. He knows not only what agnosticism is and how it has come
+about, but what will become of it. The agnostic is to content himself
+with being the precursor of the positivist. In his place, as a sort of
+navvy levelling the ground and cleansing it of such poor stuff as
+Christianity, he is a useful creature who deserves patting on the
+back, on condition that he does not venture beyond his last. But let
+not these scientific Sanballats presume that they are good enough to
+take part in the building of the Temple&mdash;they are mere Samaritans,
+doomed to die out in proportion as <!-- Page 283 -->the Religion of Humanity is
+accepted by mankind. Well, if that is their fate, they have time to be
+cheerful. But let us hear Mr. Harrison's pronouncement of their doom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion, an entirely
+negative stage, the point reached by physicists, a purely mental
+conclusion, with no relation to things social at all&quot; (p. 154). I am
+quite dazed by this declaration. Are there, then, any &quot;conclusions&quot;
+that are not &quot;purely mental&quot;? Is there &quot;no relation to things social&quot;
+in &quot;mental conclusions&quot; which affect men's whole conception of life?
+Was that prince of agnostics, David Hume, particularly imbued with
+physical science? Supposing physical science to be non-existent, would
+not the agnostic principle, applied by the philologist and the
+historian, lead to exactly the same results? Is the modern more or
+less complete suspension of judgment as to the facts of the history of
+regal Rome, or the real origin of the Homeric poems, anything but
+agnosticism in history and in literature? And if so, how can
+agnosticism be the &quot;mere negation of the physicist&quot;?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion.&quot; No two people
+agree as to what is meant by the term &quot;religion&quot;; but if it means, as
+I think it ought to mean, simply the reverence and love for the
+ethical ideal, and the desire to realise that ideal in life, which
+every man ought <!-- Page 284 -->to feel&mdash;then I say agnosticism has no more to do
+with it than it has to do with music or painting. If, on the other
+hand, Mr. Harrison, like most people, means by &quot;religion&quot; theology,
+then, in my judgment, agnosticism can be said to be a stage in its
+evolution, only as death may be said to be the final stage in the
+evolution of life.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When agnostic logic is simply one of the canons of thought,
+     agnosticism, as a distinctive faith, will have spontaneously
+     disappeared (p. 155).</p></div>
+
+<p>I can but marvel that such sentences as this, and those already
+quoted, should have proceeded from Mr. Harrison's pen. Does he really
+mean to suggest that agnostics have a logic peculiar to themselves?
+Will lie kindly help me out of my bewilderment when I try to think of
+&quot;logic&quot; being anything else than the canon (which, I believe, means
+rule) of thought? As to agnosticism being a distinctive faith, I have
+already shown that it cannot possibly be anything of the kind, unless
+perfect faith in logic is distinctive of agnostics; which, after all,
+it may be.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Agnosticism as a religious philosophy <i>per se</i> rests on an
+     almost total ignoring of history and social evolution (p.
+     152).</p></div>
+
+<p>But neither <i>per se</i> nor <i>per aliud</i> has agnosticism (if I know
+anything about it) the least pretension to be a religious philosophy;
+so far from resting on ignorance of history, and that social evolution
+<!-- Page 285 -->of which history is the account, it is and has been the inevitable
+result of the strict adherence to scientific methods by historical
+investigators. Our forefathers were quite confident about the
+existence of Romulus and Remus, of King Arthur, and of Hengist and
+Horsa. Most of us have become agnostics in regard to the reality of
+these worthies. It is a matter of notoriety of which Mr. Harrison, who
+accuses us all so freely of ignoring history, should not be ignorant,
+that the critical process which has shattered the foundations of
+orthodox Christian doctrine owes its origin, not to the devotees of
+physical science, but, before all, to Richard Simon, the learned
+French Oratorian, just two hundred years ago. I cannot find evidence
+that either Simon, or any one of the great scholars and critics of the
+eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who have continued Simon's work,
+had any particular acquaintance with physical science. I have already
+pointed out that Hume was independent of it. And certainly one of the
+most potent influences in the same direction, upon history in the
+present century, that of Grote, did not come from the physical side.
+Physical science, in fact, has had nothing directly to do with the
+criticism of the Gospels; it is wholly incompetent to furnish
+demonstrative evidence that any statement made in these histories is
+untrue. Indeed, modern physiology can find parallels in nature for
+events of apparently <!-- Page 286 -->the most eminently supernatural kind recounted
+in some of those histories.</p>
+
+<p>It is a comfort to hear, upon Mr. Harrison's authority, that the laws
+of physical nature show no signs of becoming &quot;less definite, less
+consistent, or less popular as time goes on&quot; (p. 154). How a law of
+nature is to become indefinite, or &quot;inconsistent,&quot; passes my poor
+powers of imagination. But with universal suffrage and the coach-dog
+theory of premiership in full view; the theory, I mean, that the whole
+duty of a political chief is to look sharp for the way the social
+coach is driving, and then run in front and bark loud&mdash;as if being the
+leading noise-maker and guiding were the same things&mdash;it is truly
+satisfactory to me to know that the laws of nature are increasing in
+popularity. Looking at recent developments of the policy which is said
+to express the great heart of the people, I have had my doubts of the
+fact; and my love for my fellow-countrymen has led me to reflect, with
+dread, on what will happen to them, if any of the laws of nature ever
+become so unpopular in their eyes, as to be voted down by the
+transcendent authority of universal suffrage. If the legion of demons,
+before they set out on their journey in the swine, had had time to
+hold a meeting and to resolve unanimously &quot;That the law of gravitation
+is oppressive and ought to be repealed,&quot; I am afraid it would have
+made no sort of difference to the result, when their two <!-- Page 287 -->thousand
+unwilling porters were once launched down the steep slopes of the
+fatal shore of Gennesaret.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The question of the place of religion as an element of human
+     nature, as a force of human society, its origin, analysis,
+     and functions, has never been considered at all from an
+     agnostic point of view (p. 152).</p></div>
+
+<p>I doubt not that Mr. Harrison knows vastly more about history than I
+do; in fact, he tells the public that some of my friends and I have
+had no opportunity of occupying ourselves with that subject. I do not
+like to contradict any statement which Mr. Harrison makes on his own
+authority; only, if I may be true to my agnostic principles, I humbly
+ask how he has obtained assurance on this head. I do not profess to
+know anything about the range of Mr. Harrison's studies; but as he has
+thought it fitting to start the subject, I may venture to point out
+that, on evidence adduced, it might be equally permissible to draw the
+conclusion that Mr. Harrison's other labours have not allowed him to
+acquire that acquaintance with the methods and results of physical
+science, or with the history of philosophy, or of philological and
+historical criticism, which is essential to any one who desires to
+obtain a right understanding of agnosticism. Incompetence in
+philosophy, and in all branches of science except mathematics, is the
+well-known <!-- Page 288 -->mental characteristic of the founder of positivism.
+Faithfulness in disciples is an admirable quality in itself; the pity
+is that it not unfrequently leads to the imitation of the weaknesses
+as well as of the strength of the master. It is only such
+over-faithfulness which can account for a &quot;strong mind really
+saturated with the historical sense&quot; (p. 153) exhibiting the
+extraordinary forgetfulness of the historical fact of the existence of
+David Hume implied by the assertion that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>it would be difficult to name a single known agnostic who
+     has given to history anything like the amount of thought and
+     study which he brings to a knowledge of the physical world
+     (p. 153).</p></div>
+
+<p>Whoso calls to mind what I may venture to term the bright side of
+Christianity&mdash;that ideal of manhood, with its strength and its
+patience, its justice and its pity for human frailty, its helpfulness
+to the extremity of self-sacrifice, its ethical purity and nobility,
+which apostles have pictured, in which armies of martyrs have placed
+their unshakable faith, and whence obscure men and women, like
+Catherine of Sienna and John Knox, have derived the courage to rebuke
+popes and kings&mdash;is not likely to underrate the importance of the
+Christian faith as a factor in human history, or to doubt that if that
+faith should prove to be incompatible with our knowledge, or necessary
+want of knowledge, some other hypostasis of men's hopes, genuine
+enough and worthy enough <!-- Page 289 -->to replace it, will arise. But that the
+incongruous mixture of bad science with eviscerated papistry, out of
+which Comte manufactured the positivist religion, will be the heir of
+the Christian ages, I have too much respect for the humanity of the
+future to believe. Charles the Second told his brother, &quot;They will not
+kill me, James, to make you king.&quot; And if critical science is
+remorselessly destroying the historical foundations of the noblest
+ideal of humanity which mankind have yet worshipped, it is little
+likely to permit the pitiful reality to climb into the vacant shrine.</p>
+
+<p>That a man should determine to devote himself to the service of
+humanity&mdash;including intellectual and moral self-culture under that
+name; that this should be, in the proper sense of the word, his
+religion&mdash;is not only an intelligible, but, I think, a laudable
+resolution. And I am greatly disposed to believe that it is the only
+religion which will prove itself to be unassailably acceptable so long
+as the human race endures. But when the Comtist asks me to worship
+&quot;Humanity&quot;&mdash;that is to say, to adore the generalised conception of men
+as they ever have been and probably ever will be&mdash;I must reply that I
+could just as soon bow down and worship the generalised conception of
+a &quot;wilderness of apes.&quot; Surely we are not going back to the days of
+Paganism, when individual men were deified, and the hard good sense of
+a dying Vepasian could prompt <!-- Page 290 -->the bitter jest, &quot;Ut puto Deus fio.&quot; No
+divinity doth hedge a modern man, be he even a sovereign ruler. Nor is
+there any one, except a municipal magistrate, who is officially
+declared worshipful. But if there is no spark of worship-worthy
+divinity in the individual twigs of humanity, whence comes that
+godlike splendour which the Moses of Positivism fondly imagines to
+pervade the whole bush?</p>
+
+<p>I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the
+evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history.
+Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of
+his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent
+than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not
+lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his
+mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life
+with barren toil and battle. He attains a certain degree of physical
+comfort, and develops a more or less workable theory of life, in such
+favourable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or of Egypt, and
+then, for thousands and thousands of years, struggles, with varying
+fortunes, attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to
+maintain himself at this point against the greed and the ambition of
+his fellow-men. He makes a point of killing and otherwise persecuting
+all those who first try to get him to move on; and <!-- Page 291 -->when he has moved
+on a step, foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his victims.
+He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a step yet
+farther. And the best men of the best epochs are simply those who make
+the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.</p>
+
+<p>That one should rejoice in the good man, forgive the bad man, and pity
+and help all men to the best of one's ability, is surely indisputable.
+It is the glory of Judaism and of Christianity to have proclaimed this
+truth, through all their aberrations. But the worship of a God who
+needs forgiveness and help, and deserves pity every hour of his
+existence, is no better than that of any other voluntarily selected
+fetish. The Emperor Julian's project was hopeful in comparison with
+the prospects of the Comtist Anthropolatry.</p>
+
+<p>When the historian of religion in the twentieth century is writing
+about the nineteenth, I foresee he will say something of this kind:</p>
+
+<p>The most curious and instructive events in the religious history of
+the preceding century are the rise and progress of two new sects
+called Mormons and Positivists. To the student who has carefully
+considered these remarkable phenomena nothing in the records of
+religious self-delusion can appear improbable.</p>
+
+<p>The Mormons arose in the midst of the great<!-- Page 292 --> Republic, which, though
+comparatively insignificant, at that time, in territory as in the
+number of its citizens, was (as we know from the fragments of the
+speeches of its orators which have come down to us) no less remarkable
+for the native intelligence of its population than for the wide extent
+of their information, owing to the activity of their publishers in
+diffusing all that they could invent, beg, borrow, or steal. Nor were
+they less noted for their perfect freedom from all restraints in
+thought, or speech, or deed; except, to be sure, the beneficent and
+wise influence of the majority, exerted, in case of need, through an
+institution known as &quot;tarring and feathering,&quot; the exact nature of
+which is now disputed.</p>
+
+<p>There is a complete consensus of testimony that the founder of
+Mormonism, one Joseph Smith, was a low-minded, ignorant scamp, and
+that he stole the &quot;Scriptures&quot; which he propounded; not being clever
+enough to forge even such contemptible stuff as they contain.
+Nevertheless he must have been a man of some force of character, for a
+considerable number of disciples soon gathered about him. In spite of
+repeated outbursts of popular hatred and violence&mdash;during one of which
+persecutions Smith was brutally murdered&mdash;the Mormon body steadily
+increased, and became a flourishing community. But the Mormon
+practices being objectionable to the majority, they were, more than
+once, without any pretence of law, but by <!-- Page 293 -->force of riot, arson, and
+murder, driven away from the land they had occupied. Harried by these
+persecutions, the Mormon body eventually committed itself to the
+tender mercies of a desert as barren as that of Sinai; and after
+terrible sufferings and privations, reached the Oasis of Utah. Here it
+grew and flourished, sending out missionaries to, and receiving
+converts from, all parts of Europe, sometimes to the number of 10,000
+in a year; until, in 1880, the rich and flourishing community numbered
+110,000 souls in Utah alone, while there were probably 30,000 or
+40,000 scattered abroad elsewhere. In the whole history of religions
+there is no more remarkable example of the power of faith; and, in
+this case, the founder of that faith was indubitably a most despicable
+creature. It is interesting to observe that the course taken by the
+great Republic and its citizens runs exactly parallel with that taken
+by the Roman Empire and its citizens towards the early Christians,
+except that the Romans had a certain legal excuse for their acts of
+violence, inasmuch as the Christian &quot;sodalitia&quot; were not licensed, and
+consequently were, <i>ipso facto</i>, illegal assemblages. Until, in the
+latter part of the nineteenth century, the United States legislature
+decreed the illegality of polygamy, the Mormons were wholly within the
+law.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing can present a greater contrast to all this than the history of
+the Postivists. This sect arose much about the same time as that of
+the<!-- Page 294 --> Mormons, in the upper and most instructed stratum of the
+quick-witted, sceptical population of Paris. The founder, Auguste
+Comte, was a teacher of mathematics, but of no eminence in that
+department of knowledge, and with nothing but an amateur's
+acquaintance with physical, chemical, and biological science. His
+works are repulsive, on account of the dull diffuseness of their
+style, and a certain air, as of a superior person, which characterises
+them; but nevertheless they contain good things here and there. It
+would take too much space to reproduce in detail a system which
+proposes to regulate all human life by the promulgation of a Gentile
+Leviticus. Suffice it to say, that M. Comte may be described as a
+syncretic, who, like the Gnostics of early Church history, attempted
+to combine the substance of imperfectly comprehended contemporary
+science with the form of Roman Christianity. It may be that this is
+the reason why his disciples were so very angry with some obscure
+people called Agnostics, whose views, if we may judge by the account
+left in the works of a great Positivist controversial writer, were
+very absurd.</p>
+
+<p>To put the matter briefly, M. Comte, finding Christianity and Science
+at daggers drawn, seems to have said to Science, &quot;You find
+Christianity rotten at the core, do you? Well, I will scoop out the
+inside of it.&quot; And to Romanism: &quot;You find Science mere dry light&mdash;cold
+and bare.<!-- Page 295 --> Well, I will put your shell over it, and so, as schoolboys
+make a spectre out of a turnip and a tallow candle, behold the new
+religion of Humanity complete!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately neither the Romanists, nor the people who were something
+more than amateurs in science, could be got to worship M. Comte's new
+idol properly. In the native country of Positivism, one distinguished
+man of letters and one of science, for a time, helped to make up a
+roomful of the faithful, but their love soon grew cold. In England, on
+the other hand, there appears to be little doubt that, in the ninth
+decade of the century, the multitude of disciples reached the grand
+total of several score. They had the advantage of the advocacy of one
+or two most eloquent and learned apostles, and, at any rate, the
+sympathy of several persons of light and leading; and, if they were
+not seen, they were heard, all over the world. On the other hand, as a
+sect, they laboured under the prodigious disadvantage of being
+refined, estimable people, living in the midst of the worn-out
+civilisation of the old world; where any one who had tried to
+persecute them, as the Mormons were persecuted, would have been
+instantly hanged. But the majority never dreamed of persecuting them;
+on the contrary, they were rather given to scold and otherwise try the
+patience of the majority.</p>
+
+<p>The history of these sects in the closing years <!-- Page 296 -->of the century is
+highly instructive. Mormonism ...</p>
+
+<p>But I find I have suddenly slipped off Mr. Harrison's tripod, which I
+had borrowed for the occasion. The fact is, I am not equal to the
+prophetical business, and ought not to have undertaken it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>[It did not occur to me, while writing the latter part of this essay,
+that it could be needful to disclaim the intention of putting the
+religious system of Comte on a level with Mormonism. And I was unaware
+of the fact that Mr. Harrison rejects the greater part of the
+Positivist Religion, as taught by Comte. I have, therefore, erased one
+or two passages, which implied his adherence to the &quot;Religion of
+Humanity&quot; as developed by Comte, 1893.]</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> See the <i>Official Report of the Church Congress held at
+Manchester</i>, October 1888, pp. 253, 254.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> In this place and in the eleventh essay, there are
+references to the late Archbishop of York which are of no importance
+to my main argument, and which I have expunged because I desire to
+obliterate the traces of a temporary misunderstanding with a man of
+rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking
+and no less respect. I rejoice to think now of the (then) Bishop's
+cordial hail the first time we met after our little skirmish, &quot;Well,
+is it to be peace or war?&quot; I replied, &quot;A little of both.&quot; But there
+was only peace when we parted, and ever after.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Dr. Wace tells us, &quot;It may be asked how far we can rely
+on the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on these subjects.&quot;
+And he seems to think the question appropriately answered by the
+assertion that it &quot;ought to be regarded as settled by M. Renan's
+practical surrender of the adverse case.&quot; I thought I knew M. Renan's
+works pretty well, but I have contrived to miss this &quot;practical&quot; (I
+wish Dr. Wace had defined the scope of that useful adjective)
+surrender. However, as Dr. Wace can find no difficulty in pointing out
+the passage of M. Renan's writings, by which he feels justified in
+making his statement, I shall wait for further enlightenment,
+contenting myself, for the present, with remarking that if M. Renan
+were to retract and do penance in Notre-Dame to-morrow for any
+contributions to Biblical criticism that may be specially his
+property, the main results of that criticism, as they are set forth in
+the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not
+be sensibly affected.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> See De Gobineau, <i>Les Religions et les Philosophies dans
+l'Asie Centrale</i>; and the recently published work of Mr. E.G. Browne,
+<i>The Episode of the Bab</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Here, as always, the revised version is cited.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Does any one really mean to say that there is any
+internal or external criterion by which the reader of a biblical
+statement, in which scientific matter is contained, is enabled to
+judge whether it is to betaken <i>au s&eacute;rieux</i> or not? Is the account of
+the Deluge, accepted as true in the New Testament, less precise and
+specific than that of the call of Abraham, also accepted as true
+therein? By what mark does the story of the feeding with manna in the
+wilderness, which involves some very curious scientific problems, show
+that it is meant merely for edification, while the story of the
+inscription of the Law on stone by the hand of Jahveh is literally
+true? If the story of the Fall is not the true record of an historical
+occurrence, what becomes of Pauline theology? Yet the story of the
+Fall as directly conflicts with probability, and is as devoid of
+trustworthy evidence, as that of the creation or that of the Deluge,
+with which it forms an harmoniously legendary series.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> See, for an admirable discussion of the whole subject,
+Dr. Abbott's article on the Gospels in the <i>Encyclop&aelig;dia Britannica</i>;
+and the remarkable monograph by Professor Volkmar, <i>Jesus Nazarenus
+und die erste christliche Zeit</i> (1882). Whether we agree with the
+conclusions of these writers or not, the method of critical
+investigation which, they adopt is unimpeachable.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Notwithstanding the hard words shot at me from behind
+the hedge of anonymity by a writer in a recent number of the
+<i>Quarterly Review</i>, I repeat, without the slightest fear of
+refutation, that the four Gospels, as they have come to us, are the
+work of unknown writers.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Their arguments, in the long run, are always reducible
+to one form. Otherwise trustworthy witnesses affirm that such and such
+events took place. These events are inexplicable, except the agency of
+&quot;spirits&quot; is admitted. Therefore &quot;spirits&quot; were the cause of the
+phenomena.
+</p><p>
+And the heads of the reply are always the same. Remember Goethe's
+aphorism: &quot;Alles factische ist schon Theorie.&quot; Trustworthy witnesses
+are constantly deceived, or deceive themselves, in their
+interpretation of sensible phenomena. No one can prove that the
+sensible phenomena, in these cases, could be caused only by the agency
+of spirits: and there is abundant ground for believing that they may
+be produced in other ways. Therefore, the utmost that can be
+reasonably asked for, on the evidence as it stands, is suspension of
+judgment. And, on the necessity for even that suspension, reasonable
+men may differ, according to their views of probability.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the
+matter, for, many years afterwards, when Dean Mansel's Bampton
+Lectures were published, it seemed to me I already knew all that this
+eminently agnostic thinker had to tell me.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <i>Kritik der reinen Vernunft</i>. Edit. Hartenstein, p.
+256.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> <i>Report of the Church Congress</i>, Manchester, 1888, p.
+252.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, Jan. 1889.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII" ></a><!-- Page 297 -->VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER</h3>
+
+<h4>[1889]</h4>
+
+
+<p>Those who passed from Dr. Wace's article in the last number of the
+&quot;Nineteenth Century&quot; to the anticipatory confutation of it which
+followed in &quot;The New Reformation,&quot; must have enjoyed the pleasure of a
+dramatic surprise&mdash;just as when the fifth act of a new play proves
+unexpectedly bright and interesting. Mrs. Ward will, I hope, pardon
+the comparison, if I say that her effective clearing away of
+antiquated incumbrances from the lists of the controversy, reminds me
+of nothing so much as of the action of some neat-handed, but
+strong-wristed, Phyllis, who, gracefully wielding her long-handled
+&quot;Turk's head,&quot; sweeps away the accumulated results of the toil of
+generations of spiders. I am the more indebted to this luminous sketch
+of the results of critical investigation, as it is carried out among
+these theologians who are men of science and not mere counsel for
+creeds, since it has relieved me from the necessity of <!-- Page 298 -->dealing with
+the greater part of Dr. Wace's polemic, and enables me to devote more
+space to the really important issues which have been raised.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64" ></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, however, it may be well for me to observe that approbation of
+the manner in which a great biblical scholar, for instance, Reuss,
+does his work does not commit me to the adoption of all, or indeed any
+of his views; and, further, that the disagreements of a series of
+investigators do not in any way interfere with the fact that each of
+them has made important contributions to the body of truth ultimately
+established. If I cite Buffon, Linn&aelig;us, Lamarck, and Cuvier, as having
+each and all taken a leading share in building up modern biology, the
+statement that every one of these great naturalists disagreed with,
+and even more or less contradicted, all the rest is quite true; but
+the supposition that the latter assertion is in any way inconsistent
+with the former, would betray a strange ignorance of the manner in
+which all true science advances.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Wace takes a great deal of trouble to make it appear that I have
+desired to evade the real questions raised by his attack upon me at
+the Church Congress. I assure the reverend Principal <!-- Page 299 -->that in this, as
+in some other respects, he has entertained a very erroneous conception
+of my intentions. Things would assume more accurate proportions in Dr.
+Wace's mind, if he would kindly remember that it is just thirty years
+since ecclesiastical thunderbolts began to fly about my ears. I have
+had the &quot;Lion and the Bear&quot; to deal with, and it is long since I got
+quite used to the threatenings of episcopal Goliaths, whose croziers
+were like unto a weaver's beam. So that I almost think I might not
+have noticed Dr. Wace's attack, personal as it was; and although, as
+he is good enough to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the
+modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not come
+under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I further
+venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expenditure of
+twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would have enabled
+Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conventions as to direct my
+attention to the fact that he had attacked me before a meeting at
+which I was not present? I really am not responsible for the five
+months' neglect of which Dr. Wace complains. Singularly enough, the
+Englishry who swarmed about the Engadine, during the three months that
+I was being brought back to life by the glorious air and perfect
+comfort of the Maloja, did not, in my hearing, say anything about the
+important events which had taken place at the<!-- Page 300 --> Church Congress; and I
+think I can venture to affirm that there was not a single copy of Dr.
+Wace's pamphlet in any of the hotel libraries which I rummaged, in
+search of something more edifying than dull English or questionable
+French novels.</p>
+
+<p>And now, having, as I hope, set myself right with the public as
+regards the sins of commission and omission with which I have been
+charged, I feel free to deal with matters to which time and type may
+be more profitably devoted.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that there is not a solitary argument I have used, or that I
+am about to use, which is original, or has anything to do with the
+fact that I have been chiefly occupied with natural science. They are
+all, facts and reasoning alike, either identical with, or
+consequential upon, propositions which are to be found in the works of
+scholars and theologians of the highest repute in the only two
+countries, Holland and Germany,<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65" ></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> in which, at the present time,
+professors of theology are to be found, whose tenure of their posts
+does not depend upon the results to which their inquiries lead
+them.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66" ></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> It is true that, to the best of my ability, I have satisfied
+myself of the soundness of <!-- Page 301 -->the foundations on which my arguments are
+built, and I desire to be held fully responsible for everything I say.
+But, nevertheless, my position is really no more than that of an
+expositor; and my justification for undertaking it is simply that
+conviction of the supremacy of private judgment (indeed, of the
+impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the
+Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by the
+vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that backsliding
+towards the &quot;beggarly rudiments&quot; of an effete and idolatrous
+sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with the saddest
+spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Englishmen in this
+generation. A high court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with a host
+of great lawyers in battle array, is and, for Heaven knows how long,
+will be, occupied with these very questions of &quot;washing of cups and
+pots and brazen vessels,&quot; which the Master, whose professed
+representatives are rending the Church over these <!-- Page 302 -->squabbles, had in
+his mind when, as we are told, he uttered the scathing rebuke:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<p>Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,<br />
+<span class="i4">This people honoureth me with their lips,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But their heart is far from me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">But in vain do they worship me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.</span></p></div>
+<p class="right">(Mark vii. 6-7.)</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Men who can be absorbed in bickerings over miserable disputes of this
+kind can have but little sympathy with the old evangelical doctrine of
+the &quot;open Bible,&quot; or anything but a grave misgiving of the results of
+diligent reading of the Bible, without the help of ecclesiastical
+spectacles, by the mass of the people. Greatly to the surprise of many
+of my friends, I have always advocated the reading of the Bible, and
+the diffusion of the study of that most remarkable collection of books
+among the people. Its teachings are so infinitely superior to those of
+the sects, who are just as busy now as the Pharisees were eighteen
+hundred years ago, in smothering them under &quot;the precepts of men&quot;; it
+is so certain, to my mind, that the Bible contains within itself the
+refutation of nine-tenths of the mixture of sophistical metaphysics
+and old-world superstition which has been piled round it by the
+so-called Christians of later times; it is so clear that the only
+immediate and ready antidote to the poison which has been mixed with
+Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of <!-- Page 303 -->mankind, lies in
+copious draughts from the undefiled spring, that I exercise the right
+and duty of free judgment on the part of every man, mainly for the
+purpose of inducing other laymen to follow my example. If the New
+Testament is translated into Zulu by Protestant missionaries, it must
+be assumed that a Zulu convert is competent to draw from its contents
+all the truths which it is necessary for him to believe. I trust that
+I may, without immodesty, claim to be put on the same footing as a
+Zulu.</p>
+
+<p>The most constant reproach which is launched against persons of my way
+of thinking is that it is all very well for us to talk about the
+deductions of scientific thought, but what are the poor and the
+uneducated to do? Has it ever occurred to those who talk in this
+fashion, that their creeds and the articles of their several
+confessions, their determination of the exact nature and extent of the
+teachings of Jesus, their expositions of the real meaning of that
+which is written in the Epistles (to leave aside all questions
+concerning the Old Testament), are nothing more than deductions which,
+at any rate, profess to be the result of strictly scientific thinking,
+and which are not worth attending to unless they really possess that
+character? If it is not historically true that such and such things
+happened in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of
+Christianity? And what is historical truth but that of <!-- Page 304 -->which the
+evidence bears strict scientific investigation? I do not call to mind
+any problem of natural science which has come under my notice which is
+more difficult, or more curiously interesting as a mere problem, than
+that of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels and that of the historical
+value of the narratives which they contain. The Christianity of the
+Churches stands or falls by the results of the purely scientific
+investigation of these questions. They were first taken up, in a
+purely scientific spirit, about a century ago; they have been studied
+over and over again by men of vast knowledge and critical acumen; but
+he would be a rash man who should assert that any solution of these
+problems, as yet formulated, is exhaustive. The most that can be said
+is that certain prevalent solutions are certainly false, while others
+are more or less probably true.</p>
+
+<p>If I am doing my best to rouse my countrymen out of their dogmatic
+slumbers, it is not that they may be amused by seeing who gets the
+best of it in a contest between a &quot;scientist&quot; and a theologian. The
+serious question is whether theological men of science, or theological
+special pleaders, are to have the confidence of the general public; it
+is the question whether a country in which it is possible for a body
+of excellent clerical and lay gentlemen to discuss, in public meeting
+assembled, how much it is desirable to let the congregations <!-- Page 305 -->of the
+faithful know of the results of biblical criticism, is likely to wake
+up with anything short of the grasp of a rough lay hand upon its
+shoulder; it is the question whether the New Testament books, being,
+as I believe they were, written and compiled by people who, according
+to their lights, were perfectly sincere, will not, when properly
+studied as ordinary historical documents, afford us the means of
+self-criticism. And it must be remembered that the New Testament books
+are not responsible for the doctrine invented by the Churches that
+they are anything but ordinary historical documents. The author of the
+third gospel tells us, as straightforwardly as a man can, that he has
+no claim to any other character than that of an ordinary compiler and
+editor, who had before him the works of many and variously qualified
+predecessors.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In my former papers, according to Dr. Wace, I have evaded giving an
+answer to his main proposition, which he states as follows&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one
+     practically doubts that our Lord lived, and that He died on
+     the cross, in the most intense sense of filial relation to
+     His Father in Heaven, and that He bore testimony to that
+     Father's providence, love, and grace towards mankind. The
+     Lord's Prayer affords a sufficient evidence on these points.
+     If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole unseen
+     world, of which the Agnostic refuses to know anything,
+     stands unveiled before us.... If Jesus Christ preached <!-- Page 306 -->that
+     Sermon, made those promises, and taught that prayer, then
+     any one who says that we know nothing of God, or of a future
+     life, or of an unseen world, says that he does not believe
+     Jesus Christ (pp. 354-355).</p></div>
+
+<p>Again&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The main question at issue, in a word, is one which
+     Professor Huxley has chosen to leave entirely on one
+     side&mdash;whether, namely, allowing for the utmost uncertainty
+     on other points of the criticism to which he appeals, there
+     is any reasonable doubt that the Lord's Prayer and the
+     Sermon on the Mount afford a true account of our Lord's
+     essential belief and cardinal teaching (p. 355.)</p></div>
+
+<p>I certainly was not aware that I had evaded the questions here stated;
+indeed I should say that I have indicated my reply to them pretty
+clearly; but, as Dr. Wace wants a plainer answer, he shall certainly
+be gratified. If, as Dr. Wace declares it is, his &quot;whole case is
+involved in&quot; the argument as stated in the latter of these two
+extracts, so much the worse for his whole case. For I am of opinion
+that there is the gravest reason for doubting whether the &quot;Sermon on
+the Mount&quot; was ever preached, and whether the so-called &quot;Lord's
+Prayer&quot; was ever prayed, by Jesus of Nazareth. My reasons for this
+opinion are, among others, these:&mdash;There is now no doubt that the
+three Synoptic Gospels, so far from being the work of three
+independent writers, are closely interdependent,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67" ></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> and that in one
+of two ways. Either <!-- Page 307 -->all three contain, as their foundation, versions,
+to a large extent verbally identical, of one and the same tradition;
+or two of them are thus closely dependent on the third; and the
+opinion of the majority of the best critics has of late years more and
+more converged towards the conviction that our canonical second gospel
+(the so-called &quot;Mark's&quot; Gospel) is that which most closely represents
+the primitive groundwork of the three.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68" ></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> That I take to be one of
+the most valuable results of New Testament criticism, of immeasurably
+greater importance than the discussion about dates and authorship.</p>
+
+<p>But if, as I believe to be the case, beyond any rational doubt or
+dispute, the second gospel is the nearest extant representative of the
+oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that it
+<!-- Page 308 -->contains neither the &quot;Sermon on the Mount&quot; nor the &quot;Lord's Prayer,&quot;
+those typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the &quot;essential
+belief and cardinal teaching&quot; of Jesus? Not only does &quot;Mark's&quot; gospel
+fail to contain the &quot;Sermon on the Mount,&quot; or anything but a very few
+of the sayings contained in that collection; but, at the point of the
+history of Jesus where the &quot;Sermon&quot; occurs in &quot;Matthew,&quot; there is in
+&quot;Mark&quot; an apparently unbroken narrative from the calling of James and
+John to the healing of Simon's wife's mother. Thus the oldest
+tradition not only ignores the &quot;Sermon on the Mount,&quot; but, by
+implication, raises a probability against its being delivered when and
+where the later &quot;Matthew&quot; inserts it in his compilation.</p>
+
+<p>And still more weighty is the fact that the third gospel, the author
+of which tells us that he wrote after &quot;many&quot; others had &quot;taken in
+hand&quot; the same enterprise; who should therefore have known the first
+gospel (if it existed), and was bound to pay to it the deference due
+to the work of an apostolic eye-witness (if he had any reason for
+thinking it was so)&mdash;this writer, who exhibits far more literary
+competence than the other two, ignores any &quot;Sermon on the Mount,&quot; such
+as that reported by &quot;Matthew,&quot; just as much as the oldest authority
+does. Yet &quot;Luke&quot; has a great many passages identical, or parallel,
+with those in &quot;Matthew's&quot; &quot;Sermon on the Mount,&quot; which are, <!-- Page 309 -->for the
+most part, scattered about in a totally different connection.</p>
+
+<p>Interposed, however, between the nomination of the Apostles and a
+visit to Capernaum; occupying, therefore, a place which answers to
+that of the &quot;Sermon on the Mount,&quot; in the first gospel, there is in
+the third gospel a discourse which is as closely similar to the
+&quot;Sermon on the Mount,&quot; in some particulars, as it is widely unlike it
+in others.</p>
+
+<p>This discourse is said to have been delivered in a &quot;plain&quot; or &quot;level
+place&quot; (Luke vi. 17), and by way of distinction we may call it the
+&quot;Sermon on the Plain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I see no reason to doubt that the two Evangelists are dealing, to a
+considerable extent, with the same traditional material; and a
+comparison of the two &quot;Sermons&quot; suggests very strongly that &quot;Luke's&quot;
+version is the earlier. The correspondences between the two forbid the
+notion that they are independent. They both begin with a series of
+blessings, some of which are almost verbally identical. In the middle
+of each (Luke vi. 27-38, Matt. v. 43-48) there is a striking
+exposition of the ethical spirit of the command given in Leviticus
+xix. 18. And each ends with a passage containing the declaration that
+a tree is to be known by its fruit, and the parable of the house built
+on the sand. But while there are only 29 verses in the &quot;Sermon on the
+Plain&quot; there are 107 in the &quot;Sermon on the Mount;&quot; the excess in
+<!-- Page 310 -->length of the latter being chiefly due to the long interpolations,
+one of 30 verses before and one of 34 verses after, the middlemost
+parallelism with Luke. Under these circumstances it is quite
+impossible to admit that there is more probability that &quot;Matthew's&quot;
+version of the Sermon is historically accurate, than there is that
+Luke's version is so; and they cannot both be accurate.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Luke&quot; either knew the collection of loosely-connected and aphoristic
+utterances which appear under the name of the &quot;Sermon on the Mount&quot; in
+&quot;Matthew&quot;; or he did not. If he did not, he must have been ignorant of
+the existence of such a document as our canonical &quot;Matthew,&quot; a fact
+which does not make for the genuineness, or the authority, of that
+book. If he did, he has shown that he does not care for its authority
+on a matter of fact of no small importance; and that does not permit
+us to conceive that he believed the first gospel to be the work of an
+authority to whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an apostolic
+eye-witness.</p>
+
+<p>The tradition of the Church about the second gospel, which I believe
+to be quite worthless, but which is all the evidence there is for
+&quot;Mark's&quot; authorship, would have us believe that &quot;Mark&quot; was little more
+than the mouthpiece of the apostle Peter. Consequently, we are to
+suppose that Peter either did not know, or did not care very much for,
+that account of the &quot;essential belief <!-- Page 311 -->and cardinal teaching&quot; of Jesus
+which is contained in the Sermon on the Mount; and, certainly, he
+could not have shared Dr. Wace's view of its importance.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69" ></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p>
+
+<p>I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of the
+gospels, to say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew these
+things. But how can any one who does know them have the conscience to
+ask whether there is &quot;any reasonable doubt&quot; that the Sermon on the
+Mount was preached by Jesus of Nazareth? If conjecture is permissible,
+where nothing else is possible, the most probable conjecture seems to
+be that &quot;Matthew,&quot; having a <i>cento</i> of sayings attributed&mdash;rightly or
+wrongly it is impossible to say&mdash;to Jesus among his materials, thought
+they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse, and put
+them in at the place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the
+highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches which never
+were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of statesmen and
+warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented by &quot;Matthew&quot; would
+have been grievously <!-- Page 312 -->astonished to find that any one objected to his
+following the example of the best models accessible to him.</p>
+
+<p>So with the &quot;Lord's Prayer.&quot; Absent in our representative of the
+oldest tradition, it appears in both &quot;Matthew&quot; and &quot;Luke.&quot; There is
+reason to believe that every pious Jew, at the commencement of our
+era, prayed three times a day, according to a formula which is
+embodied in the present &quot;Schmone-Esre&quot;<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70" ></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> of the Jewish prayer-book.
+Jesus, who was assuredly, in all respects, a pious Jew, whatever else
+he may have been, doubtless did the same. Whether he modified the
+current formula, or whether the so-called &quot;Lord's Prayer&quot; is the
+prayer substituted for the &quot;Schmone-Esre&quot; in the congregations of the
+Gentiles, is a question which can hardly be answered.</p>
+
+<p>In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace's article (p. 356) he adds to the
+list of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, &quot;The Story
+of the Passion.&quot; I am not quite sure what he means by this. I am not
+aware that any one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics)
+has propounded doubts as to the reality of the crucifixion; and
+certainly I have no inclination to argue about the precise accuracy of
+every detail of that pathetic story of suffering and wrong. But, if
+Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, that that <!-- Page 313 -->which, according to
+the orthodox view, happened after the crucifixion, and which is, in a
+dogmatic sense, the most important part of the story, is founded on
+solid historical proofs, I must beg leave to express a diametrically
+opposite conviction.</p>
+
+<p>What do we find when the accounts of the events in question, contained
+in the three Synoptic gospels, are compared together? In the oldest,
+there is a simple, straightforward statement which, for anything that
+I have to urge to the contrary, may be exactly true. In the other two,
+there is, round this possible and probable nucleus, a mass of
+accretions of the most questionable character.</p>
+
+<p>The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon its
+lingering character. If there were a support for the weight of the
+body, as not unfrequently was the practice, the pain during the first
+hours of the infliction was not, necessarily, extreme; nor need any
+serious physical symptoms, at once, arise from the wounds made by the
+nails in the hands and feet, supposing they were nailed, which was not
+invariably the case. When exhaustion set in, and hunger, thirst, and
+nervous irritation had done their work, the agony of the sufferer must
+have been terrible; and the more terrible that, in the absence of any
+effectual disturbance of the machinery of physical life, it might be
+prolonged for many hours, or even days. Temperate, strong men, such as
+were the ordinary Galilean peasants, might live for several days on
+<!-- Page 314 -->the cross. It is necessary to bear these facts in mind when we read
+the account contained in the fifteenth chapter of the second gospel.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus was crucified at the third hour (xv. 25), and the narrative
+seems to imply that he died immediately after the ninth hour (<i>v</i>.
+34). In this case, he would have been crucified only six hours; and
+the time spent on the cross cannot have been much longer, because
+Joseph of Arimath&aelig;a must have gone to Pilate, made his preparations,
+and deposited the body in the rock-cut tomb before sunset, which, at
+that time of the year, was about the twelfth hour. That any one should
+die after only six hours' crucifixion could not have been at all in
+accordance with Pilate's large experience of the effects of that
+method of punishment. It, therefore, quite agrees with what might be
+expected, that Pilate &quot;marvelled if he were already dead&quot; and required
+to be satisfied on this point by the testimony of the Roman officer
+who was in command of the execution party. Those who have paid
+attention to the extraordinary difficult question, What are the
+indisputable signs of death?&mdash;will be able to estimate the value of
+the opinion of a rough soldier on such a subject; even if his report
+to the Procurator were in no wise affected by the fact that the friend
+of Jesus, who anxiously awaited his answer, was a man of influence and
+of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>The inanimate body, wrapped in linen, was <!-- Page 315 -->deposited in a
+spacious,<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71" ></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> cool rock chamber, the entrance of which was closed, not
+by a well-fitting door, but by a stone rolled against the opening,
+which would of course allow free passage of air. A little more than
+thirty-six hours afterwards (Friday 6 P.M., to Sunday 6 A.M., or a
+little after) three women visit the tomb and find it empty. And they
+are told by a young man &quot;arrayed in a white robe&quot; that Jesus is gone
+to his native country of Galilee, and that the disciples and Peter
+will find him there.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it stands, plainly recorded, in the oldest tradition that, for
+any evidence to the contrary, the sepulchre may have been emptied at
+any time during the Friday or Saturday nights. If it is said that no
+Jew would have violated the Sabbath by taking the former course, it is
+to be recollected that Joseph of Arimath&aelig;a might well be familiar with
+that wise and liberal interpretation of the fourth commandment, which
+permitted works of mercy to men&mdash;nay, even the drawing of an ox or an
+ass out of a pit&mdash;on the Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was
+free to the most scrupulous of observers of the Law.</p>
+
+<p>These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant
+narrative of them. I do not see why any one should have a word to say
+against the inherent probability of that narrative; and, for my part,
+I am quite ready to accept it as an historical <!-- Page 316 -->fact, that so much and
+no more is positively known of the end of Jesus of Nazareth. On what
+grounds can a reasonable man be asked to believe any more? So far as
+the narrative in the first gospel, on the one hand, and those in the
+third gospel and the Acts, on the other, go beyond what is stated in
+the second gospel, they are hopelessly discrepant with one another.
+And this is the more significant because the pregnant phrase &quot;some
+doubted,&quot; in the first gospel, is ignored in the third.</p>
+
+<p>But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us directly
+in the Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a very
+singular witness he is. According to his own showing, Paul, in the
+vigour of his manhood, with every means of becoming acquainted, at
+first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses, not merely refused to
+credit them, but &quot;persecuted the church of God and made havoc of it.&quot;
+The reasoning of Stephen fell dead upon the acute intellect of this
+zealot for the traditions of his fathers: his eyes were blind to the
+ecstatic illumination of the martyr's countenance &quot;as it had been the
+face of an angel;&quot; and when, at the words &quot;Behold, I see the heavens
+opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,&quot; the
+murderous mob rushed upon and stoned the rapt disciple of Jesus, Paul
+ostentatiously made himself their official accomplice.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 317 -->Yet this strange man, because he has a vision, one day, at once, and
+with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opinion. And
+he is most careful to tell us that he abstained from any
+re-examination of the facts.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither
+     went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before
+     me; but I went away into Arabia. (Galatians i. 16, 17.)</p></div>
+
+<p>I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's procedure. If it satisfied
+him, that was his affair; and, if it satisfies anyone else, I am not
+called upon to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. But I
+certainly have the right to say that it would not satisfy me, in like
+case; that I should be very much ashamed to pretend that it could, or
+ought to, satisfy me; and that I can entertain but a very low estimate
+of the value of the evidence of people who are to be satisfied in this
+fashion, when questions of objective fact, in which their faith is
+interested, are concerned. So that when I am called upon to believe a
+great deal more than the oldest gospel tells me about the final events
+of the history of Jesus on the authority of Paul (1 Corinthians xv.
+5-8) I must pause. Did he think it, at any subsequent time, worth
+while &quot;to confer with flesh and blood,&quot; or, in modern phrase, to
+re-examine the facts for himself? or was he ready to accept anything
+that fitted in with his preconceived ideas? Does he mean, when he
+<!-- Page 318 -->speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if
+they were of the same kind, that they were all visions, like the
+manifestation to himself? And, finally, how is this account to be
+reconciled with those in the first and third gospels&mdash;which, as we
+have seen, disagree with one another?</p>
+
+<p>Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid that,
+so far as I am concerned, Paul's testimony cannot be seriously
+regarded, except as it may afford evidence of the state of traditional
+opinion at the time at which he wrote, say between 55 and 60 A.D.;
+that is, more than twenty years after the event; a period much more
+than sufficient for the development of any amount of mythology about
+matters of which nothing was really known. A few years later, among
+the contemporaries and neighbours of the Jews, and, if the most
+probable interpretation of the Apocalypse can he trusted, among the
+followers of Jesus also, it was fully believed, in spite of all the
+evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor Nero was not really dead,
+but that he was hidden away somewhere in the East, and would speedily
+come again at the head of a great army, to be revenged upon his
+enemies.<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72" ></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p>
+
+<p>Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for <!-- Page 319 -->the opinion that Dr.
+Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
+and the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this
+discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what
+Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I will say
+whether I believe him, or in him,<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73" ></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> or not. As Dr. Wace admits that
+I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief about the
+bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done something to help
+mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total want of conception of the
+nature of the obstacles which impede the conversion of his &quot;infidels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of
+arriving at a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon on
+the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by the
+Synoptic gospels (and <i>a fortiori</i> from the fourth gospel), are
+insuperable. Every one of these records is coloured by the
+prepossessions of those among whom the primitive traditions arose, and
+of those by whom they were collected and edited: and the difficulty of
+making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by our ignorance
+of the exact dates at which the documents were <!-- Page 320 -->first put together; of
+the extent to which they have been subsequently worked over and
+interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want of sense, and the
+dogmatic tendencies of their compilers and editors. Let us see if
+there is any other road which will take us into something better than
+negation.</p>
+
+<p>There is a widespread notion that the &quot;primitive Church,&quot; while under
+the guidance of the Apostles and their immediate successors, was a
+sort of dogmatic dovecot, pervaded by the most loving unity and
+doctrinal harmony. Protestants, especially, are fond of attributing to
+themselves the merit of being nearer &quot;the Church of the Apostles&quot; than
+their neighbours; and they are the less to be excused for their
+strange delusion because they are great readers of the documents which
+prove the exact contrary. The fact is that, in the course of the first
+three centuries of its existence, the Church rapidly underwent a
+process of evolution of the most remarkable character, the final stage
+of which is far more different from the first than Anglicanism is from
+Quakerism. The key to the comprehension of the problem of the origin
+of that which is now called &quot;Christianity,&quot; and its relation to Jesus
+of Nazareth, lies here. Nor can we arrive at any sound conclusion as
+to what it is probable that Jesus actually said and did, without being
+clear on this head. By far the most important and <!-- Page 321 -->subsequently
+influential steps in the evolution of Christianity took place in the
+course of the century, more or less, which followed upon the
+crucifixion. It is almost the darkest period of Church history, but,
+most fortunately, the beginning and the end of the period are brightly
+illuminated by the contemporary evidence of two writers of whose
+historical existence there is no doubt,<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74" ></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> and against the
+genuineness of whose most important works there is no widely-admitted
+objection. These are Justin, the philosopher and martyr, and Paul, the
+Apostle to the Gentiles. I shall call upon these witnesses only to
+testify to the condition of opinion among those who called themselves
+disciples of Jesus in their time.</p>
+
+<p>Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which was written
+somewhere about the middle of the second century, enumerates certain
+categories of persons who, in his opinion, will, or will not, be
+saved,<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75" ></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> These are:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Orthodox Jews who refuse to believe that those who do observe it to
+be heretics. <i>Saved</i>.</p>
+
+<p>2. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ; but who
+insist on the observance of the Law by Gentile converts. <i>Not Saved</i>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 322 -->3. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ, and hold
+that Gentile converts need not observe the Law. <i>Saved</i> (in Justin's
+opinion; but some of his fellow-Christians think the contrary).</p>
+
+<p>4. Gentile converts to the belief in Jesus as the Christ, who observe
+the Law. <i>Saved</i> (possibly).</p>
+
+<p>5. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who do not observe the
+Law themselves (except so far as the refusal of idol sacrifices), but
+do not consider those who do observe it heretics. <i>Saved</i> (this is
+Justin's own view).</p>
+
+<p>6. Gentile believers who do not observe the Law, except in refusing
+idol sacrifices, and hold those who do observe it to be heretics.
+<i>Saved</i>.</p>
+
+<p>7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves
+Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. <i>Not Saved</i>.</p>
+
+<p>8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. <i>Not Saved</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural birth
+of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to
+be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth
+of Jesus and his pre-existence as the &quot;Logos&quot; or &quot;Word.&quot; He conceives
+the Logos to be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable God,
+with respect to whom Justin, like Philo, is a complete agnostic. The
+Holy Spirit is not regarded by Justin as a separate personality, <!-- Page 323 -->and
+is often mixed up with the &quot;Logos.&quot; The doctrine of the natural
+immortality of the soul is, for Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a
+believer in the resurrection of the body, as in the speedy Second
+Coming and the establishment of the millennium.</p>
+
+<p>The pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century&mdash;a
+much-travelled native of Samaria&mdash;was certainly well acquainted with
+Rome, probably with Alexandria; and it is likely that he knew the
+state of opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Christian
+world as well as any man of his time. If the various categories above
+enumerated are arranged in a series thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 12.5em;"><i>Justin's Christianity</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 17.5em;">/\</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">&nbsp; &nbsp; /&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&nbsp; &nbsp; &macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;\</span><br />
+<i>Orthodox &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Jud&aelig;o-Christianity &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Idolothytic</i><br />
+<i>Judaism &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; /\ &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Christianity &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Paganism</i><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">/&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&nbsp; &nbsp; &macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;\</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; II.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; III. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; IV. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; V. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; VI. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; VII. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  VIII.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>it is obvious that they form a gradational series from orthodox
+Judaism, on the extreme left, to Paganism, whether philosophic or
+popular, on the extreme right; and it will further be observed that,
+while Justin's conception of Christianity is very broad, he rigorously
+excludes two classes of persons who, in his time, called themselves
+Christians; namely, those who insist on circumcision and other
+observances of the Law on the part of Gentile converts; that is to
+say, the strict Jud&aelig;o-Christians (II.); and, on the other hand, those
+who assert the lawfulness of eating meat <!-- Page 324 -->offered to idols&mdash;whether
+they are Gnostic or not (VII.). These last I have called &quot;idolothytic&quot;
+Christians, because I cannot devise a better name, not because it is
+strictly defensible etymologically.</p>
+
+<p>At the present moment, I do not suppose there is an English missionary
+in any heathen land who would trouble himself whether the materials of
+his dinner had been previously offered to idols or not. On the other
+hand, I suppose there is no Protestant sect within the pale of
+orthodoxy, to say nothing of the Roman and Greek Churches, which would
+hesitate to declare the practice of circumcision and the observance of
+the Jewish Sabbath and dietary rules, shockingly heretical.</p>
+
+<p>Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted far to the right of
+Justin's position, but it is of much narrower compass.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 16em;"><i>Justin</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 17em;">/\</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">/&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&nbsp; &macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;\</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;"><i>Jud&aelig;o-Christianity</i>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <i>Modern Christianity &nbsp; &nbsp; Paganism</i></span><br />
+<i>Judaism</i> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; /\ &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; /\<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">/&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&nbsp; &nbsp; &macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;\ &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; /&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&nbsp; &nbsp; &macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;&macr;\</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">I.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; II.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; III. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; IV. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; V. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; VI. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; VII. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  VIII.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p>For, though it includes VII., and even, in saint and relic worship,
+cuts a &quot;monstrous cantle&quot; out of paganism, it excludes, not only all
+Jud&aelig;o-Christians, but all who doubt that such are heretics. Ever since
+the thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have cheerfully burned,
+and in Spain did abundantly burn, all persons who came under the
+categories II., III., IV., V. And the <!-- Page 325 -->wolf would play the same havoc
+now, if it could only get its blood-stained jaws free from the muzzle
+imposed by the secular arm.</p>
+
+<p>Further, there is not a Protestant body except the Unitarian, which
+would not declare Justin himself a heretic, on account of his doctrine
+of the inferior godship of the Logos; while I am very much afraid
+that, in strict logic, Dr. Wace would be under the necessity, so
+painful to him, of calling him an &quot;infidel,&quot; on the same and on other
+grounds.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us turn to our other authority. If there is any result of
+critical investigations of the sources of Christianity which is
+certain,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76" ></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> it is that Paul of Tarsus wrote the Epistle to the
+Galatians somewhere between the years 55 and 60 A.D., that is to say,
+roughly, twenty, or five-and-twenty years after the crucifixion. If
+this is so, the Epistle to the Galatians is one of the oldest, if not
+the very oldest, of extant documentary evidences of the state of the
+primitive Church. And, be it observed, if it is Paul's writing, it
+unquestionably furnishes us with the evidence of a participator in the
+transactions narrated. With the exception of two or three of the other
+Pauline Epistles, there is not one solitary book in the New Testament
+of the authorship and authority of which we have such good evidence.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 326 -->And what is the state of things we find disclosed? A bitter quarrel,
+in his account of which Paul by no means minces matters, or hesitates
+to hurl defiant sarcasms against those who were &quot;reputed to be
+pillars&quot;: James &quot;the brother of the Lord,&quot; Peter, the rock on whom
+Jesus is said to have built his Church, and John, &quot;the beloved
+disciple.&quot; And no deference toward &quot;the rock&quot; withholds Paul from
+charging Peter to his face with &quot;dissimulation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The subject of the hot dispute was simply this. Were Gentile converts
+bound to obey the Law or not? Paul answered in the negative; and,
+acting upon his opinion, he had created at Antioch (and elsewhere) a
+specifically &quot;Christian&quot; community, the sole qualifications for
+admission into which were the confession of the belief that Jesus was
+the Messiah, and baptism upon that confession. In the epistle in
+question, Paul puts this&mdash;his &quot;gospel,&quot; as he calls it&mdash;in its most
+extreme form. Not only does he deny the necessity of conformity with
+the Law, but he declares such conformity to have a negative value.
+&quot;Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye receive circumcision,
+Christ will profit you nothing&quot; (Galatians v. 2). He calls the legal
+observances &quot;beggarly rudiments,&quot; and anathematises every one who
+preaches to the Galatians any other gospel than his own. That is to
+say, by direct consequence, he anathematises the Nazarenes of
+Jerusalem, whose zeal for the Law is <!-- Page 327 -->testified by James in a passage
+of the Acts cited further on. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
+dealing with the question of eating meat offered to idols, it is clear
+that Paul himself thinks it a matter of indifference; but he advises
+that it should not he done, for the sake of the weaker brethren. On
+the other hand, the Nazarenes of Jerusalem most strenuously opposed
+Paul's &quot;gospel,&quot; insisting on every convert becoming a regular Jewish
+proselyte, and consequently on his observance of the whole Law; and
+this party was led by James and Peter and John (Galatians ii. 9). Paul
+does not suggest that the question of principle was settled by the
+discussion referred to in Galatians. All he says is, that it ended in
+the practical agreement that he and Barnabas should do as they had
+been doing, in respect to the Gentiles; while James and Peter and John
+should deal in their own fashion with Jewish converts. Afterwards, he
+complains bitterly of Peter, because, when on a visit to Antioch, he,
+at first, inclined to Paul's view and ate with the Gentile converts;
+but when &quot;certain came from James,&quot; &quot;drew back, and separated himself,
+fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews
+dissembled likewise with him; insomuch as even Barnabas was carried
+away with their dissimulation&quot; (Galatians ii. 12-13).</p>
+
+<p>There is but one conclusion to be drawn from Paul's account of this
+famous dispute, the settlement <!-- Page 328 -->of which determined the fortunes of
+the nascent religion. It is that the disciples at Jerusalem, headed by
+&quot;James, the Lord's brother,&quot; and by the leading apostles, Peter and
+John, were strict Jews, who had objected to admit any converts into
+their body, unless these, either by birth, or by becoming proselytes,
+were also strict Jews. In fact, the sole difference between James and
+Peter and John, with the body of the disciples whom they led and the
+Jews by whom they were surrounded, and with whom they, for many years,
+shared the religious observances of the Temple, was that they believed
+that the Messiah, whom the leaders of the nation yet looked for, had
+already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.</p>
+
+<p>The Acts of the Apostles is hardly a very trustworthy history; it is
+certainly of later date than the Pauline Epistles, supposing them to
+be genuine. And the writer's version of the conference of which Paul
+gives so graphic a description, if that is correct, is unmistakably
+coloured with all the art of a reconciler, anxious to cover up a
+scandal. But it is none the less instructive on this account. The
+judgment of the &quot;council&quot; delivered by James is that the Gentile
+converts shall merely &quot;abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and
+from blood and from things strangled, and from fornication.&quot; But
+notwithstanding the accommodation in which the writer of the Acts
+would have us believe, the Jerusalem Church held <!-- Page 329 -->to its endeavour to
+retain the observance of the Law. Long after the conference, some time
+after the writing of the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians,
+and immediately after the despatch of that to the Romans, Paul makes
+his last visit to Jerusalem, and presents himself to James and all the
+elders. And this is what the Acts tells us of the interview:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And they said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many
+     thousands [or myriads] there are among the Jews of them
+     which have believed; and they are all zealous for the law;
+     and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou
+     teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to
+     forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their
+     children, neither to walk after the customs. (Acts xxi. 20,
+     21.)</p></div>
+
+<p>They therefore request that he should perform a certain public
+religious act in the Temple, in order that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof
+     they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou
+     thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law (<i>ibid</i>. 24).<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77" ></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>How far Paul could do what he is here requested to do, and which the
+writer of the Acts goes on to say he did, with a clear conscience, if
+he wrote the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, I may leave
+any candid reader of these epistles to decide. The point to which I
+wish to <!-- Page 330 -->direct attention is the declaration that the Jerusalem
+Church, led by the brother of Jesus and by his personal disciples and
+friends, twenty years and more after his death, consisted of strict
+and zealous Jews.</p>
+
+<p>Tertullus, the orator, caring very little about the internal
+dissensions of the followers of Jesus, speaks of Paul as a &quot;ringleader
+of the sect of the Nazarenes&quot; (Acts xxiv. 5), which must have affected
+James much in the same way as it would have moved the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in George Fox's day, to hear the latter called a
+&quot;ringleader of the sect of Anglicans.&quot; In fact, &quot;Nazarene&quot; was, as is
+well known, the distinctive appellation applied to Jesus; his
+immediate followers were known as Nazarenes; while the congregation of
+the disciples, and, later, of converts at Jerusalem&mdash;the Jerusalem
+Church&mdash;was emphatically the &quot;sect of the Nazarenes,&quot; no more, in
+itself, to be regarded as anything outside Judaism than the sect of
+the Sadducees, or that of the Essenes.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78" ></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> In fact, the tenets of both
+the Sadducees and the Essenes diverged much more widely from the
+Pharisaic standard of orthodoxy than Nazarenism did.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider the condition of affairs now (A.D. 50-60) in relation
+to that which obtained <!-- Page 331 -->in Justin's time, a century later. It is plain
+that the Nazarenes&mdash;presided over by James, &quot;the brother of the Lord,&quot;
+and comprising within their body all the twelve apostles&mdash;belonged to
+Justin's second category of &quot;Jews who observe the Law, believe Jesus
+to be the Christ, but who insist on the observance of the Law by
+Gentile converts,&quot; up till the time at which the controversy reported
+by Paul arose. They then, according to Paul, simply allowed him to
+form his congregations of non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and
+elsewhere; and it would seem that it was to these converts, who would
+come under Justin's fifth category, that the title of &quot;Christian&quot; was
+first applied. If any of these Christians had acted upon the more than
+half-permission given by Paul, and had eaten meats offered to idols,
+they would have belonged to Justin's seventh category.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, it appears that, if Justin's opinion, which was probably that
+of the Church generally in the middle of the second century, was
+correct, James and Peter and John and their followers could not be
+saved; neither could Paul, if he carried into practice his views as to
+the indifference of eating meats offered to idols. Or, to put the
+matter another way, the centre of gravity of orthodoxy, which is at
+the extreme right of the series in the nineteenth century, was at the
+extreme left just before the middle of the first <!-- Page 332 -->century, when the
+&quot;sect of the Nazarenes&quot; constituted the whole church founded by Jesus
+and the apostles; while, in the time of Justin, it lay mid-way between
+the two. It is therefore a profound mistake to imagine that the
+Jud&aelig;o-Christians (Nazarenes and Ebionites) of later times were
+heretical outgrowths from a primitive universalist &quot;Christianity.&quot; On
+the contrary, the universalist &quot;Christianity&quot; is an outgrowth from the
+primitive, purely Jewish, Nazarenism; which, gradually eliminating all
+the ceremonial and dietary parts of the Jewish law, has thrust aside
+its parent, and all the intermediate stages of its development, into
+the position of damnable heresies.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the case, we are in a position to form a safe judgment of
+the limits within which the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth must have
+been confined. Ecclesiastical authority would have us believe that the
+words which are given at the end of the first Gospel, &quot;Go ye,
+therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in
+the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,&quot; are part
+of the last commands of Jesus, issued at the moment of his parting
+with the eleven. If so, Peter and John must have heard these words;
+they are too plain to be misunderstood; and the occasion is too solemn
+for them ever to be forgotten. Yet the &quot;Acts&quot; tells us that Peter
+needed a vision to enable him so <!-- Page 333 -->much as to baptize Cornelius; and
+Paul, in the Galatians, knows nothing of words which would have
+completely borne him out as against those who, though they heard, must
+be supposed to have either forgotten, or ignored them. On the other
+hand, Peter and John, who are supposed to have heard the &quot;Sermon on
+the Mount,&quot; know nothing of the saying that Jesus had not come to
+destroy the Law, but that every jot and tittle of the Law must be
+fulfilled, which surely would have been pretty good evidence for their
+view of the question.</p>
+
+<p>We are sometimes told that the personal friends and daily companions
+of Jesus remained zealous Jews and opposed Paul's innovations, because
+they were hard of heart and dull of comprehension. This hypothesis is
+hardly in accordance with the concomitant faith of those who adopt it,
+in the miraculous insight and superhuman sagacity of their Master; nor
+do I see any way of getting it to harmonise with the orthodox
+postulate; namely, that Matthew was the author of the first gospel and
+John of the fourth. If that is so, then, most assuredly, Matthew was
+no dullard; and as for the fourth gospel&mdash;a theosophic romance of the
+first order&mdash;it could have been written by none but a man of
+remarkable literary capacity, who had drunk deep of Alexandrian
+philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine of the writer of the fourth gospel
+is more remote <!-- Page 334 -->from that of the &quot;sect of the Nazarenes&quot; than is that
+of Paul himself. I am quite aware that orthodox critics have been
+capable of maintaining that John, the Nazarene, who was probably well
+past fifty years of age, when he is supposed to have written the most
+thoroughly Judaising book in the New Testament&mdash;the Apocalypse&mdash;in the
+roughest of Greek, underwent an astounding metamorphosis of both
+doctrine and style by the time he reached the ripe age of ninety or
+so, and provided the world with a history in which the acutest critic
+cannot [always] make out where the speeches of Jesus end and the text
+of the narrative begins; while that narrative is utterly
+irreconcilable, in regard to matters of fact, with that of his
+fellow-apostle, Matthew.</p>
+
+<p>The end of the whole matter is this:&mdash;The &quot;sect of the Nazarenes,&quot; the
+brother and the immediate followers of Jesus, commissioned by him as
+apostles, and those who were taught by them up to the year 50 A.D.,
+were not &quot;Christians&quot; in the sense in which that term has been
+understood ever since its asserted origin at Antioch, but Jews&mdash;strict
+orthodox Jews&mdash;whose belief in the Messiahship of Jesus never led to
+their exclusion from the Temple services, nor would have shut them out
+from the wide embrace of Judaism.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79" ></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> <!-- Page 335 -->The open proclamation of their
+special view about the Messiah was doubtless offensive to the
+Pharisees, just as rampant Low Churchism is offensive to bigoted High
+Churchism in our own country; or as any kind of dissent is offensive
+to fervid religionists of all creeds. To the Sadducees, no doubt, the
+political danger of any Messianic movement was serious; and they would
+have been glad to put down Nazarenism, lest it should end in useless
+rebellion against their Roman masters, like that other Galilean
+movement headed by Judas, a generation earlier. Galilee was always a
+hotbed of seditious enthusiasm against the rule of Rome; and high
+priest and procurator alike had need to keep a sharp eye upon natives
+of that district. On the whole, however, the Nazarenes were but little
+troubled for the first twenty years of their existence; and the
+undying hatred of the Jews against those later converts, whom they
+regarded as apostates and fautors of a sham Judaism, was awakened by
+Paul. From their point of view, he was a mere renegade Jew, opposed
+alike to orthodox Judaism and to orthodox Nazarenism; and whose
+teachings threatened Judaism with destruction. And, from their point
+of view, they were quite right. In the course of a century, Pauline
+influences had a large share in driving primitive Nazarenism from
+being the very heart of the new faith into the position of scouted
+error; and the spirit of Paul's doctrine continued <!-- Page 336 -->its work of
+driving Christianity farther and farther away from Judaism, until
+&quot;meats offered to idols&quot; might be eaten without scruple, while the
+Nazarene methods of observing even the Sabbath, or the Passover, were
+branded with the mark of Judaising heresy.</p>
+
+<p>But if the primitive Nazarenes of whom the Acts speak were orthodox
+Jews, what sort of probability can there be that Jesus was anything
+else? How can he have founded the universal religion which was not
+heard of till twenty years after his death?<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80" ></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> That Jesus possessed,
+in a rare degree, the gift of attaching men to his person and to his
+fortunes; that he was the author of many a striking saying, and the
+advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have
+disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and
+appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which
+constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets
+of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last
+scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of
+Isaiah, may be, as I think it is, extremely probable. But all this
+involves not a step beyond the borders of orthodox <!-- Page 337 -->Judaism. Again,
+who is to say whether Jesus proclaimed himself the veritable Messiah,
+expected by his nation since the appearance of the pseudoprophetic
+work of Daniel, a century and a half before his time; or whether the
+enthusiasm of his followers gradually forced him to assume that
+position?</p>
+
+<p>But one thing is quite certain: if that belief in the speedy second
+coming of the Messiah which was shared by all parties in the primitive
+Church, whether Nazarene or Pauline; which Jesus is made to prophesy,
+over and over again, in the Synoptic gospels; and which dominated the
+life of Christians during the first century after the crucifixion;&mdash;if
+he believed and taught that, then assuredly he was under an illusion,
+and he is responsible for that which the mere effluxion of time has
+demonstrated to be a prodigious error.</p>
+
+<p>When I ventured to doubt &quot;whether any Protestant theologian who has a
+reputation to lose will say that he believes the Gadarene story,&quot; it
+appears that I reckoned without Dr. Wace, who, referring to this
+passage in my paper, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>He will judge whether I fall under his description; but I
+     repeat that I believe it, and that he has removed the only
+     objection to my believing it (p. 363).</p></div>
+
+<p>Far be it from me to set myself up as a judge <!-- Page 338 -->of any such delicate
+question as that put before me; but I think I may venture to express
+the conviction that, in the matter of courage, Dr. Wace has raised for
+himself a monument <i>&aelig;re perennius.</i> For really, in my poor judgment, a
+certain splendid intrepidity, such as one admires in the leader of a
+forlorn hope, is manifested by Dr. Wace when he solemnly affirms that
+he believes the Gadarene story on the evidence offered. I feel less
+complimented perhaps than I ought to do, when I am told that I have
+been an accomplice in extinguishing in Dr. Wace's mind the last
+glimmer of doubt which common sense may have suggested. In fact, I
+must disclaim all responsibility for the use to which the information
+I supplied has been put. I formally decline to admit that the
+expression of my ignorance whether devils, in the existence of which I
+do not believe, if they did exist, might or might not be made to go
+out of men into pigs, can, as a matter of logic, have been of any use
+whatever to a person who already believed in devils and in the
+historical accuracy of the gospels.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Gadarene story, Dr. Wace, with all solemnity and twice over,
+affirms that he &quot;believes it.&quot; I am sorry to trouble him further, but
+what does he mean by &quot;it&quot;? Because there are two stories, one in
+&quot;Mark&quot; and &quot;Luke,&quot; and the other in &quot;Matthew.&quot; In the former, which I
+quoted in my previous paper, there is one possessed <!-- Page 339 -->man; in the
+latter there are two. The story is told fully, with the vigorous
+homely diction and the picturesque details of a piece of folklore, in
+the second gospel. The immediately antecedent event is the storm on
+the Lake of Gennesaret. The immediately consequent events are the
+message from the ruler of the synagogue and the healing of the woman
+with an issue of blood. In the third gospel, the order of events is
+exactly the same, and there is an extremely close general and verbal
+correspondence between the narratives of the miracle. Both agree in
+stating that there was only one possessed man, and that he was the
+residence of many devils, whose name was &quot;Legion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the first gospel, the event which immediately precedes the Gadarene
+affair is, as before, the storm; the message from the ruler and the
+healing of the issue are separated from it by the accounts of the
+healing of a paralytic, of the calling of Matthew, and of a discussion
+with some Pharisees. Again, while the second gospel speaks of the
+country of the &quot;Gerasenes&quot; as the locality of the event, the third
+gospel has &quot;Gerasenes,&quot; &quot;Gergesenes,&quot; and &quot;Gadarenes&quot; in different
+ancient MSS.; while the first has &quot;Gadarenes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The really important points to be noticed, however, in the narrative
+of the first gospel, are these&mdash;that there are two possessed men
+instead of one; and that while the story is abbreviated by <!-- Page 340 -->omissions,
+what there is of it is often verbally identical with the corresponding
+passages in the other two gospels. The most unabashed of reconcilers
+cannot well say that one man is the same as two, or two as one; and,
+though the suggestion really has been made, that two different
+miracles, agreeing in all essential particulars, except the number of
+the possessed, were effected immediately after the storm on the lake,
+I should be sorry to accuse any one of seriously adopting it. Nor will
+it he pretended that the allegory refuge is accessible in this
+particular case.</p>
+
+<p>So, when Dr. Wace says that he believes in the synoptic evangelists'
+account of the miraculous bedevilment of swine, I may fairly ask which
+of them does he believe? Does he hold by the one evangelist's story,
+or by that of the two evangelists? And having made his election, what
+reasons has he to give for his choice? If it is suggested that the
+witness of two is to be taken against that of one, not only is the
+testimony dealt with in that common-sense fashion against which the
+theologians of his school protest so warmly; not only is all question
+of inspiration at an end, but the further inquiry arises, After all,
+is it the testimony of two against one? Are the authors of the
+versions in the second and third gospels really independent witnesses?
+In order to answer this question, it is only needful to place the
+English versions of the two side by side, and <!-- Page 341 -->compare them carefully.
+It will then be seen that the coincidences between them, not merely in
+substance, but in arrangement, and in the use of identical words in
+the same order, are such, that only two alternatives are conceivable:
+either one evangelist freely copied from the other, or both based
+themselves upon a common source, which may either have been a written
+document, or a definite oral tradition learned by heart. Assuredly,
+these two testimonies are not those of independent witnesses. Further,
+when the narrative in the first gospel is compared with that in the
+other two, the same fact comes out.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing, then, that Dr. Wace is right in his assumption that
+Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote the works which we find attributed to
+them by tradition, what is the value of their agreement, even that
+something more or less like this particular miracle occurred, since it
+is demonstrable, either that all depend on some antecedent statement,
+of the authorship of which nothing is known, or that two are dependent
+upon the third?</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Wace says he believes the Gadarene story; whichever version of it
+he accepts, therefore, he believes that Jesus said what he is stated
+in all the versions to have said, and thereby virtually declared that
+the theory of the nature of the spiritual world involved in the story
+is true. Now I hold that this theory is false, that it is a monstrous
+and mischievous fiction; and I unhesitatingly express <!-- Page 342 -->my disbelief in
+any assertion that it is true, by whomsoever made. So that, if Dr.
+Wace is right in his belief, he is also quite right in classing me
+among the people he calls &quot;infidels&quot;; and although I cannot fulfil the
+eccentric expectation that I shall glory in a title which, from my
+point of view, it would be simply silly to adopt, I certainly shall
+rejoice not to be reckoned among &quot;Christians&quot; so long as the
+profession of belief in such stories as the Gadarene pig affair, on
+the strength of a tradition of unknown origin, of which two discrepant
+reports, also of unknown origin, alone remain, forms any part of the
+Christian faith. And, although I have, more than once, repudiated the
+gift of prophecy, yet I think I may venture to express the
+anticipation, that if &quot;Christians&quot; generally are going to follow the
+line taken by Dr. Wace, it will not be long before all men of common
+sense qualify for a place among the &quot;infidels.&quot;</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> I may perhaps return to the question of the authorship
+of the Gospels. For the present I must content myself with warning my
+readers against any reliance upon Dr. Wace's statements as to the
+results arrived at by modern criticism. They are as gravely as
+surprisingly erroneous.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> The United States ought, perhaps, to be added, but I am
+not sure.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Imagine that all our chairs of astronomy had been
+founded in the fourteenth century, and that their incumbents were
+bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with every respect for
+the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and expound the truth,
+I think men of common sense would go elsewhere to learn astronomy.
+Zeller's <i>Vortr&auml;ge und Abhandlungen</i> were published and came into my
+hands a quarter of a century ago. The writer's rank, as a theologian
+to begin with, and subsequently as a historian of Greek philosophy, is
+of the highest. Among these essays are two&mdash;<i>Das Urchirstenthum</i> and
+<i>Die T&uuml;binger historische Schule</i>&mdash;which are likely to be of more use
+to those who wish to know the real state of the case than all that the
+official &quot;apologists,&quot; with their one eye on truth and the other on
+the tenets of their sect, have written. For the opinion of a
+scientific theologian about theologians of this stamp see pp. 225 and
+227 of the <i>Vortr&auml;ge</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> I suppose this is what Dr. Wace is thinking about when
+he says that I allege that there &quot;is no visible escape&quot; from the
+supposition of an <i>Ur-Marcus</i> (p. 367). That a &quot;theologian of repute&quot;
+should confound an indisputable fact with one of the modes of
+explaining that fact is not so singular as those who are unaccustomed
+to the ways of theologians might imagine.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> Any examiner whose duty it has been to examine into a
+case of &quot;copying&quot; will be particularly well prepared to appreciate the
+force of the case stated in that most excellent little book, <i>The
+Common Tradition of the Synoptic Gospels</i>, by Dr. Abbott and Mr.
+Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884). To those who have not passed through
+such painful experiences I may recommend the brief discussion of the
+genuineness of the &quot;Casket Letters&quot; in my friend Mr. Skelton's
+interesting book, <i>Maitland of Lethington</i>. The second edition of
+Holtzmann's <i>Lehrbuch</i>, published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair and
+full account of the present results of criticism. At p. 366 he writes
+that the present burning question is whether the &quot;relatively primitive
+narrative and the root of the other synoptic texts is contained in
+Matthew or in Mark. It is only on this point that properly-informed
+(<i>sachkundige</i>) critics differ,&quot; and he decides in favour of Mark.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> Holtzmann (<i>Die synoptischen Evangelien</i>, 1863, p. 75),
+following Ewald, argues that the &quot;Source A&quot; (= the threefold
+tradition, more or less) contained something that answered to the
+&quot;Sermon on the Plain&quot; immediately after the words of our present Mark,
+&quot;And he cometh into a house&quot; (iii. 19). But what conceivable motive
+could &quot;Mark&quot; have for omitting it? Holtzmann has no doubt, however,
+that the &quot;Sermon on the Mount&quot; is a compilation, or, as he calls it in
+his recently-published <i>Lehrbuch</i> (p. 372), &quot;an artificial mosaic
+work.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> See Sch&uuml;rer, <i>Geschichte des j&uuml;dischen Volkes</i>, Zweiter
+Thiel, p. 384.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Spacious, because a young man could sit in it &quot;on the
+right side&quot; (xv. 5), and therefore with plenty of room to spare.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> King Herod had not the least difficulty in supposing the
+resurrection of John the Baptist&mdash;&quot;John, whom I beheaded, he is risen&quot;
+(Mark vi. 16).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> I am very sorry for the interpolated &quot;in,&quot; because
+citation ought to be accurate in small things as in great. But what
+difference it makes whether one &quot;believes Jesus&quot; or &quot;believes in
+Jesus&quot; much thought has not enabled me to discover. If you &quot;believe
+him&quot; you must believe him to be what he professed to be&mdash;that is,
+&quot;believe in him;&quot; and if you &quot;believe in him&quot; you must necessarily
+&quot;believe him.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> True for Justin: but there is a school of theological
+critics, who more or less question the historical reality of Paul, and
+the genuineness of even the four cardinal epistles.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> See <i>Dial. cum Tryphone</i>, &sect;47 and &sect;35. It is to be
+understood that Justin does not arrange these categories in order, as
+I have done.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> I guard myself against being supposed to affirm that
+even the four cardinal epistles of Paul may not have been seriously
+tampered with. See note 1, p. 287 above.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Paul, in fact, is required to commit in Jerusalem, an
+act of the same character as that which he brands as &quot;dissimulation&quot;
+on the part of Peter in Antioch.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> All this was quite clearly pointed out by Ritschl nearly
+forty years ago. See <i>Die Entstchung der alt-katholischen Kirche</i>
+(1850), p. 108.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> &quot;If every one was baptized as soon as he acknowledged
+Jesus to be the Messiah, the first Christians can have been aware of
+no other essential differences from the Jews.&quot;&mdash;Zeller, <i>Vortr&auml;ge</i>
+(1865), p. 26.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Dr. Harnack, in the lately-published second edition of
+his <i>Dogmengeschichte</i>, says (p. 39), &quot;Jesus Christ brought forward no
+new doctrine;&quot; and again (p. 65), &quot;It is not difficult to set against
+every portion of the utterances of Jesus an observation which deprives
+him of originality.&quot; See also Zusatz 4, on the same page.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX" ></a><!-- Page 343 -->IX</h2>
+
+<h3>AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY</h3>
+
+<h4>[1889]</h4>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Nemo ergo ex me scire qu&aelig;rat, quod me nescire scio, nisi
+forte ut nescire discat.</p>
+<p class="right">&mdash;AUGUSTINUS, <i>De Civ. Dei</i>, xii. 7.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81" ></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> The present discussion has arisen out of the use, which has
+become general in the last few years, of the terms &quot;Agnostic&quot; and
+&quot;Agnosticism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The people who call themselves &quot;Agnostics&quot; have been charged with
+doing so because they have not the courage to declare themselves
+&quot;Infidels.&quot; It has been insinuated that they have adopted a new name
+in order to escape the unpleasantness which attaches to their proper
+denomination. To this wholly erroneous imputation, I have replied by
+showing that the term &quot;Agnostic&quot; did, as a matter of fact, arise in a
+manner which negatives it; and my statement has not been, and cannot
+be, refuted. Moreover, <!-- Page 344 -->speaking for myself, and without impugning the
+right of any other person to use the term in another sense, I further
+say that Agnosticism is not properly described as a &quot;negative&quot; creed,
+nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses
+absolute faith in the validity of a principle, which is as much
+ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways,
+but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he
+is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can
+produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is
+what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is
+essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as
+immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which
+men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and
+that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in
+such inadequately supported propositions. The justification of the
+Agnostic principle lies in the success which follows upon its
+application, whether in the field of natural, or in that of civil,
+history; and in the fact that, so far as these topics are concerned,
+no sane man thinks of denying its validity.</p>
+
+<p>Still speaking for myself, I add, that though Agnosticism is not, and
+cannot be, a creed, except in so far as its general principle is
+concerned; yet that the application of that principle results in <!-- Page 345 -->the
+denial of, or the suspension of judgment concerning, a number of
+propositions respecting which our contemporary ecclesiastical
+&quot;gnostics&quot; profess entire certainty. And, in so far as these
+ecclesiastical persons can be justified in their old-established
+custom (which many nowadays think more honoured in the breach than the
+observance) of using opprobrious names to those who differ from them,
+I fully admit their right to call me and those who think with me
+&quot;Infidels&quot;; all I have ventured to urge is that they must not expect
+us to speak of ourselves by that title.</p>
+
+<p>The extent of the region of the uncertain, the number of the problems
+the investigation of which ends in a verdict of not proven, will vary
+according to the knowledge and the intellectual habits of the
+individual Agnostic. I do not very much care to speak of anything as
+&quot;unknowable.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82" ></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> What I am sure about is that there are many topics
+about which I know nothing; and which, so far as I can see, are out of
+reach of my faculties. But whether these things are knowable by any
+one else is exactly one of those matters which is beyond my knowledge,
+though I may have a tolerably strong opinion as to the probabilities
+of the case. Relatively to myself, I am quite sure that the region of
+uncertainty&mdash;the nebulous country in which words play the part of
+realities&mdash;is <!-- Page 346 -->far more extensive than I could wish. Materialism and
+Idealism; Theism and Atheism; the doctrine of the soul and its
+mortality or immortality&mdash;appear in the history of philosophy like the
+shades of Scandinavian heroes, eternally slaying one another and
+eternally coming to life again in a metaphysical &quot;Nifelheim.&quot; It is
+getting on for twenty-five centuries, at least, since mankind began
+seriously to give their minds to these topics. Generation after
+generation, philosophy has been doomed to roll the stone uphill; and,
+just as all the world swore it was at the top, down it has rolled to
+the bottom again. All this is written in innumerable books; and he who
+will toil through them will discover that the stone is just where it
+was when the work began. Hume saw this; Kant saw it; since their time,
+more and more eyes have been cleansed of the films which prevented
+them from seeing it; until now the weight and number of those who
+refuse to be the prey of verbal mystifications has begun to tell in
+practical life.</p>
+
+<p>It was inevitable that a conflict should arise between Agnosticism and
+Theology; or rather, I ought to say, between Agnosticism and
+Ecclesiasticism. For Theology, the science, is one thing; and
+Ecclesiasticism, the championship of a foregone conclusion<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83" ></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> as to
+the truth of a particular <!-- Page 347 -->form of Theology, is another. With
+scientific Theology, Agnosticism has no quarrel. On the contrary, the
+Agnostic, knowing too well the influence of prejudice and
+idiosyncrasy, even on those who desire most earnestly to be impartial,
+can wish for nothing more urgently than that the scientific theologian
+should not only be at perfect liberty to thresh out the matter in his
+own fashion; but that he should, if he can, find flaws in the Agnostic
+position; and, even if demonstration is not to be had, that he should
+put, in their full force, the grounds of the conclusions he thinks
+probable. The scientific theologian admits the Agnostic principle,
+however widely his results may differ from those reached by the
+majority of Agnostics.</p>
+
+<p>But, as between Agnosticism and Ecclesiasticism, or, as our neighbours
+across the Channel call it, Clericalism, there can be neither peace
+nor truce. The Cleric asserts that it is morally wrong not to believe
+certain propositions, whatever the results of a strict scientific
+investigation of the evidence of these propositions. He tells us &quot;that
+religious error is, in itself, of an immoral nature.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84" ></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> He declares
+that he has prejudged certain conclusions, and looks upon those who
+show cause for arrest of judgment as emissaries of Satan. It
+necessarily follows that, for him, the attainment of faith, not the
+ascertainment of truth, is the <!-- Page 348 -->highest aim of mental life. And, on
+careful analysis of the nature of this faith, it will too often be
+found to be, not the mystic process of unity with the Divine,
+understood by the religious enthusiast; but that which the candid
+simplicity of a Sunday scholar once defined it to be. &quot;Faith,&quot; said
+this unconscious plagiarist of Tertullian, &quot;is the power of saying you
+believe things which are incredible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now I, and many other Agnostics, believe that faith, in this sense, is
+an abomination; and though we do not indulge in the luxury of
+self-righteousness so far as to call those who are not of our way of
+thinking hard names, we do not feel that the disagreement between
+ourselves and those who hold this doctrine is even more moral than
+intellectual. It is desirable there should be an end of any mistakes
+on this topic. If our clerical opponents were clearly aware of the
+real state of the case, there would be an end of the curious delusion,
+which often appears between the lines of their writings, that those
+whom they are so fond of calling &quot;Infidels&quot; are people who not only
+ought to be, but in their hearts are, ashamed of themselves. It would
+be discourteous to do more than hint the antipodal opposition of this
+pleasant dream of theirs to facts.</p>
+
+<p>The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us, that if we refuse
+to admit that there is good ground for expressing definite convictions
+about <!-- Page 349 -->certain topics, the bonds of human society will dissolve and
+mankind lapse into savagery. There are several answers to this
+assertion. One is that the bonds of human society were formed without
+the aid of their theology; and, in the opinion of not a few competent
+judges, have been weakened rather than strengthened by a good deal of
+it. Greek science, Greek art, the ethics of old Israel, the social
+organisation of old Rome, contrived to come into being, without the
+help of any one who believed in a single distinctive article of the
+simplest of the Christian creeds. The science, the art, the
+jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern
+world have grown out of those of Greece and Rome&mdash;not by favour of,
+but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity,
+to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of
+this world, were alike despicable.</p>
+
+<p>Again, all that is best in the ethics of the modern world, in so far
+as it has not grown out of Greek thought, or Barbarian manhood, is the
+direct development of the ethics of old Israel. There is no code of
+legislation, ancient or modern, at once so just and so merciful, so
+tender to the weak and poor, as the Jewish law; and, if the Gospels
+are to be trusted, Jesus of Nazareth himself declared that he taught
+nothing but that which lay implicitly, or explicitly, in the religious
+and ethical system of his people.<!-- Page 350 --></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast
+     well said that he is one; and there is none other but he,
+     and to love him with all the heart, and with all the
+     understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his
+     neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt
+     offerings and sacrifices. (Mark xii. 32, 33.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Here is the briefest of summaries of the teaching of the prophets of
+Israel of the eighth century; does the Teacher, whose doctrine is thus
+set forth in his presence, repudiate the exposition? Nay; we are told,
+on the contrary, that Jesus saw that he &quot;answered discreetly,&quot; and
+replied, &quot;Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So that I think that even if the creeds, from the so-called
+&quot;Apostles,&quot; to the so-called &quot;Athanasian,&quot; were swept into oblivion;
+and even if the human race should arrive at the conclusion that,
+whether a bishop washes a cup or leaves it unwashed, is not a matter
+of the least consequence, it will get on very well. The causes which
+have led to the development of morality in mankind, which have guided
+or impelled us all the way from the savage to the civilised state,
+will not cease to operate because a number of ecclesiastical
+hypotheses turn out to be baseless. And, even if the absurd notion
+that morality is more the child of speculation than of practical
+necessity and inherited instinct, had any foundation; if all the world
+is going to thieve, murder, and otherwise misconduct itself as soon as
+it discovers that <!-- Page 351 -->certain portions of ancient history are mythical,
+what is the relevance of such arguments to any one who holds by the
+Agnostic principle?</p>
+
+<p>Surely, the attempt to cast out Beelzebub by the aid of Beelzebub is a
+hopeful procedure as compared to that of preserving morality by the
+aid of immorality. For I suppose it is admitted that an Agnostic may
+be perfectly sincere, may be competent, and may have studied the
+question at issue with as much care as his clerical opponents. But, if
+the Agnostic really believes what he says, the &quot;dreadful consequence&quot;
+argufier (consistently, I admit, with his own principles) virtually
+asks him to abstain from telling the truth, or to say what he believes
+to be untrue, because of the supposed injurious consequences to
+morality. &quot;Beloved brethren, that we may be spotlessly moral, before
+all things let us lie,&quot; is the sum total of many an exhortation
+addressed to the &quot;Infidel.&quot; Now, as I have already pointed out, we
+cannot oblige our exhorters. We leave the practical application of the
+convenient doctrines of &quot;Reserve&quot; and &quot;Non-natural interpretation&quot; to
+those who invented them.</p>
+
+<p>I trust that I have now made amends for any ambiguity, or want of
+fulness, in my previous exposition of that which I hold to be the
+essence of the Agnostic doctrine. Henceforward, I might hope to hear
+no more of the assertion that we are necessarily Materialists,
+Idealists, Atheists,<!-- Page 352 --> Theists, or any other <i>ists</i>, if experience had
+led me to think that the proved falsity of a statement was any
+guarantee against its repetition. And those who appreciate the nature
+of our position will see, at once, that when Ecclesiasticism declares
+that we ought to believe this, that, and the other, and are very
+wicked if we don't, it is impossible for us to give any answer but
+this: We have not the slightest objection to believe anything you
+like, if you will give us good grounds for belief; but, if you cannot,
+we must respectfully refuse, even if that refusal should wreck
+mortality and insure our own damnation several times over. We are
+quite content to leave that to the decision of the future. The course
+of the past has impressed us with the firm conviction that no good
+ever comes of falsehood, and we feel warranted in refusing even to
+experiment in that direction.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the course of the present discussion it has been asserted that the
+&quot;Sermon on the Mount&quot; and the &quot;Lord's Prayer&quot; furnish a summary and
+condensed view of the essentials of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth,
+set forth by himself. Now this supposed <i>Summa</i> of Nazarene theology
+distinctly affirms the existence of a spiritual world, of a Heaven,
+and of a Hell of fire; it teaches the Fatherhood of God and the
+malignity of the Devil; it declares the superintending providence of
+the former and our need of deliverance from the <!-- Page 353 -->machinations of the
+latter; it affirms the fact of demoniac possession and the power of
+casting out devils by the faithful. And from these premises, the
+conclusion is drawn, that those Agnostics who deny that there is any
+evidence of such a character as to justify certainty, respecting the
+existence and the nature of the spiritual world, contradict the
+express declarations of Jesus. I have replied to this argumentation by
+showing that there is strong reason to doubt the historical accuracy
+of the attribution to Jesus of either the &quot;Sermon on the Mount&quot; or the
+&quot;Lord's Prayer&quot;; and, therefore, that the conclusion in question is
+not warranted, at any rate, on the grounds set forth.</p>
+
+<p>But, whether the Gospels contain trustworthy statements about this and
+other alleged historical facts or not, it is quite certain that from
+them, taken together with the other books of the New Testament, we may
+collect a pretty complete exposition of that theory of the spiritual
+world which was held by both Nazarenes and Christians; and which was
+undoubtedly supposed by them to be fully sanctioned by Jesus, though
+it is just as clear that they did not imagine it contained any
+revelation by him of something heretofore unknown. If the
+pneumatological doctrine which pervades the whole New Testament is
+nowhere systematically stated, it is everywhere assumed. The writers
+of the Gospels and of the Acts take it <!-- Page 354 -->for granted, as a matter of
+common knowledge; and it is easy to gather from these sources a series
+of propositions, which only need arrangement to form a complete
+system.</p>
+
+<p>In this system, Man is considered to be a duality formed of a
+spiritual element, the soul; and a corporeal<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85" ></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> element, the body.
+And this duality is repeated in the Universe, which consists of a
+corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual world. The
+former consists of the earth, as its principal and central
+constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the
+earth is the air, and below is the watery abyss. Whether the heaven,
+which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell in, or below, the
+subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or incorporeal is not
+clear. However this may be, the heaven and the air, the earth and the
+abyss, are peopled by innumerable beings analogous in nature to the
+spiritual element in man, and these spirits are of two kinds, good and
+bad. The chief of the good spirits, infinitely superior to all the
+others, and their creator, as well as the creator of the corporeal
+world and of the bad spirits, is God. <!-- Page 355 -->His residence is heaven, where
+he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good spirits; his angels, or
+messengers, and the executors of his will throughout the universe.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Satan, <i>the</i> devil
+<i>par excellence</i>. He and his company of demons are free to roam
+through all parts of the universe, except the heaven. These bad
+spirits are far superior to man in power and subtlety; and their whole
+energies are devoted to bringing physical and moral evils upon him,
+and to thwarting, so far as his power goes, the benevolent intentions
+of the Supreme Being. In fact, the souls and bodies of men form both
+the theatre and the prize of an incessant warfare between the good and
+the evil spirits&mdash;the powers of light and the powers of darkness. By
+leading Eve astray, Satan brought sin and death upon mankind. As the
+gods of the heathen, the demons are the founders and maintainers of
+idolatry; as the &quot;powers of the air&quot; they afflict mankind with
+pestilence and famine; as &quot;unclean spirits&quot; they cause disease of mind
+and body.</p>
+
+<p>The significance of the appearance of Jesus, in the capacity of the
+Messiah, or Christ, is the reversal of the satanic work by putting an
+end to both sin and death. He announces that the kingdom of God is at
+hand, when the &quot;Prince of this world&quot; shall be finally &quot;cast out&quot;
+(John xii. 31) from the cosmos, as Jesus, during his earthly <!-- Page 356 -->career,
+cast him out from individuals. Then will Satan and all his devilry,
+along with the wicked whom they have seduced to their destruction, be
+hurled into the abyss of unquenchable fire&mdash;there to endure continual
+torture, without a hope of winning pardon from the merciful God, their
+Father; or of moving the glorified Messiah to one more act of pitiful
+intercession; or even of interrupting, by a momentary sympathy with
+their wretchedness, the harmonious psalmody of their brother angels
+and men, eternally lapped in bliss unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p>The straitest Protestant, who refuses to admit the existence of any
+source of Divine truth, except the Bible, will not deny that every
+point of the pneumatological theory here set forth has ample
+scriptural warranty. The Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the
+Apocalypse assert the existence of the devil, of his demons and of
+Hell, as plainly as they do that of God and his angels and Heaven. It
+is plain that the Messianic and the Satanic conceptions of the writers
+of these books are the obverse and the reverse of the same
+intellectual coinage. If we turn from Scripture to the traditions of
+the Fathers and the confessions of the Churches, it will appear that,
+in this one particular, at any rate, time has brought about no
+important deviation from primitive belief. From Justin onwards, it may
+often be a fair question whether God, or the devil, occupies a larger
+<!-- Page 357 -->share of the attention of the Fathers. It is the devil who instigates
+the Roman authorities to persecute; the gods and goddesses of paganism
+are devils, and idolatry itself is an invention of Satan; if a saint
+falls away from grace, it is by the seduction of the demon; if heresy
+arises, the devil has suggested it; and some of the Fathers<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86" ></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> go so
+far as to challenge the pagans to a sort of exorcising match, by way
+of testing the truth of Christianity. Medi&aelig;val Christianity is at one
+with patristic, on this head. The masses, the clergy, the theologians,
+and the philosophers alike, live and move and have their being in a
+world full of demons, in which sorcery and possession are everyday
+occurrences. Nor did the Reformation make any difference. Whatever
+else Luther assailed, he left the traditional demonology untouched;
+nor could any one have entertained a more hearty and uncompromising
+belief in the devil, than he and, at a later period, the Calvinistic
+fanatics of New England did. Finally, in these last years of the
+nineteenth century, the demonological hypotheses of the first century
+are, explicitly or implicitly, held and occasionally acted upon by the
+immense majority of Christians of all confessions.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 358 -->Only here and there has the progress of scientific thought, outside
+the ecclesiastical world, so far affected Christians, that they and
+their teachers fight shy of the demonology of their creed. They are
+fain to conceal their real disbelief in one half of Christian doctrine
+by judicious silence about it; or by flight to those refuges for the
+logically destitute, accommodation or allegory. But the faithful who
+fly to allegory in order to escape absurdity resemble nothing so much
+as the sheep in the fable who&mdash;to save their lives&mdash;jumped into the
+pit. The allegory pit is too commodious, is ready to swallow up so
+much more than one wants to put into it. If the story of the
+temptation is an allegory; if the early recognition of Jesus as the
+Son of God by the demons is an allegory; if the plain declaration of
+the writer of the first Epistle of John (iii. 8), &quot;To this end was the
+Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil,&quot;
+is allegorical, then the Pauline version of the Fall may be
+allegorical, and still more the words of consecration of the
+Eucharist, or the promise of the second coming; in fact, there is not
+a dogma of ecclesiastical Christianity the scriptural basis of which
+may not be whittled away by a similar process.</p>
+
+<p>As to accommodation, let any honest man who can read the New Testament
+ask himself whether Jesus and his immediate friends and disciples can
+<!-- Page 359 -->be dishonoured more grossly than by the supposition that they said
+and did that which is attributed to them; while, in reality, they
+disbelieved in Satan and his demons, in possession and in
+exorcism?<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87" ></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p>
+
+<p>An eminent theologian has justly observed that we have no right to
+look at the propositions of the Christian faith with one eye open and
+the other shut. (Tract 85, p. 29.) It really is not permissible to
+see, with one eye, that Jesus is affirmed to declare the personality
+and the Fatherhood of God, His loving providence and His accessibility
+to prayer; and to shut the other to the no less definite teaching
+ascribed to Jesus, in regard to the personality and the misanthropy of
+the devil, his malignant watchfulness, and his subjection to
+exorcistic formula and rites. Jesus is made to say that the devil &quot;was
+a murderer from the beginning&quot; (John viii. 44) by the same authority
+as that upon which we depend for his asserted declaration that &quot;God is
+a spirit&quot; (John iv. 24).</p>
+
+<p>To those who admit the authority of the famous Vincentian dictum that
+the doctrine which has been held &quot;always, everywhere, and by all&quot; is
+to be received as authoritative, the demonology must possess a higher
+sanction than any other Christian dogma, except, perhaps, those of the
+Resurrection and of the Messiahship of Jesus; <!-- Page 360 -->for it would be
+difficult to name any other points of doctrine on which the Nazarene
+does not differ from the Christian, and the different historical
+stages and contemporary subdivisions of Christianity from one another.
+And, if the demonology is accepted, there can be no reason for
+rejecting all those miracles in which demons play a part. The Gadarene
+story fits into the general scheme of Christianity; and the evidence
+for &quot;Legion&quot; and their doings is just as good as any other in the New
+Testament for the doctrine which the story illustrates.</p>
+
+<p>It was with the purpose of bringing this great fact into prominence;
+of getting people to open both their eyes when they look at
+Ecclesiasticism; that I devoted so much space to that miraculous story
+which happens to be one of the best types of its class. And I could
+not wish for a better justification of the course I have adopted, than
+the fact that my heroically consistent adversary has declared his
+implicit belief in the Gadarene story and (by necessary consequence)
+in the Christian demonology as a whole. It must be obvious, by this
+time, that, if the account of the spiritual world given in the New
+Testament, professedly on the authority of Jesus, is true, then the
+demonological half of that account must be just as true as the other
+half. And, therefore, those who question the demonology, or try to
+explain it away, deny the truth of what Jesus <!-- Page 361 -->said, and are, in
+ecclesiastical terminology, &quot;Infidels&quot; just as much as those who deny
+the spirituality of God. This is as plain as anything can well be, and
+the dilemma for my opponent was either to assert that the Gadarene
+pig-bedevilment actually occurred, or to write himself down an
+&quot;Infidel.&quot; As was to be expected, he chose the former alternative; and
+I may express my great satisfaction at finding that there is one spot
+of common ground on which both he and I stand. So far as I can judge,
+we are agreed to state one of the broad issues between the
+consequences of agnostic principles (as I draw them), and the
+consequences of ecclesiastical dogmatism (as he accepts it), as
+follows.</p>
+
+<p>Ecclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an essential
+part of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of which it
+declares to be certified by Jesus.</p>
+
+<p>Agnosticism (<i>me judice</i>) says: There is no good evidence of the
+existence of a demoniac spiritual world, and much reason for doubting
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon the ecclesiastic may observe: Your doubt means that you
+disbelieve Jesus; therefore you are an &quot;Infidel&quot; instead of an
+&quot;Agnostic.&quot; To which the agnostic may reply: No; for two reasons:
+first, because your evidence that Jesus said what you say he said is
+worth very little; and secondly, because a man may be an agnostic, in
+the sense of admitting he has no positive knowledge, <!-- Page 362 -->and yet consider
+that he has more or less probable ground for accepting any given
+hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly
+declare that he has no means of knowing whether the planets generally
+are inhabited or not, and yet may think one of the two possible
+hypotheses more likely that the other, so he may admit that he has no
+means of knowing anything about the spiritual world, and yet may think
+one or other of the current views on the subject, to some extent,
+probable.</p>
+
+<p>The second answer is so obviously valid that it needs no discussion. I
+draw attention to it simply in justice to those agnostics who may
+attach greater value that I do to any sort of pneumatological
+speculations; and not because I wish to escape the responsibility of
+declaring that, whether Jesus sanctioned the demonological part of
+Christianity or not, I unhesitatingly reject it. The first answer, on
+the other hand, opens up the whole question of the claim of the
+biblical and other sources, from which hypotheses concerning the
+spiritual world are derived, to be regarded as unimpeachable
+historical evidence as to matters of fact.</p>
+
+<p>Now, in respect of the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives, I was
+anxious to get rid of the common assumption that the determination of
+the authorship and of the dates of these works is a matter of
+fundamental importance. That assumption <!-- Page 363 -->is based upon the notion that
+what contemporary witnesses say must be true, or, at least, has always
+a <i>prim&acirc; facie</i> claim to be so regarded; so that if the writers of any
+of the Gospels were contemporaries of the events (and still more if
+they were in the position of eye-witnesses) the miracles they narrate
+must be historically true, and, consequently, the demonology which
+they involve must be accepted. But the story of the &quot;Translation of
+the blessed martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus,&quot; and the other
+considerations (to which endless additions might have been made from
+the Fathers and the medi&aelig;val writers) set forth in a preceding essay,
+yield, in my judgment, satisfactory proof that, where the miraculous
+is concerned, neither considerable intellectual ability, nor undoubted
+honesty, nor knowledge of the world, nor proved faithfulness as civil
+historians, nor profound piety, on the part of eye-witnesses and
+contemporaries, affords any guarantee of the objective truth of their
+statements, when we know that a firm belief in the miraculous was
+ingrained in their minds, and was the pre-supposition of their
+observations and reasonings.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we have no
+real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of composition of the
+Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that nothing better than
+more or less probable guesses can be arrived at on that subject, I
+have <!-- Page 364 -->not cared to expend any space on the question. It will be
+admitted, I suppose; that the authors of the works attributed to
+Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whoever they may be, are personages
+whose capacity and judgment in the narration of ordinary events are
+not quite so well certified as those of Eginhard; and we have seen
+what the value of Eginhard's evidence is when the miraculous is in
+question.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I have been careful to explain that the arguments which I have used in
+the course of this discussion are not new; that they are historical
+and have nothing to do with what is commonly called science; and that
+they are all, to the best of my belief, to be found in the works of
+theologians of repute.</p>
+
+<p>The position which I have taken up, that the evidence in favour of
+such miracles as those recorded by Eginhard, and consequently of
+medi&aelig;val demonology, is quite as good as that in favour of such
+miracles as the Gadarene, and consequently of Nazarene demonology, is
+none of my discovery. Its strength was, wittingly or unwittingly,
+suggested, a century and a half ago, by a theological scholar of
+eminence; and it has been, if not exactly occupied, yet so fortified
+with bastions and redoubts by a living ecclesiastical Vauban, that, in
+my judgment, it has been rendered impregnable. In the early part of
+the last century, <!-- Page 365 -->the ecclesiastical mind in this country was much
+exercised by the question, not exactly of miracles, the occurrence of
+which in biblical times was axiomatic, but by the problem: When did
+miracles cease? Anglican divines were quite sure that no miracles had
+happened in their day, nor for some time past; they were equally sure
+that they happened sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier. And it was
+a vital question for them to determine at what point of time, between
+this <i>terminus a quo</i> and that <i>terminus ad quem</i>, miracles came to an
+end.</p>
+
+<p>The Anglicans and the Romanists agreed in the assumption that the
+possession of the gift of miracle-working was <i>prim&acirc; facie</i> evidence
+of the soundness of the faith of the miracle-workers. The supposition
+that miraculous powers might be wielded by heretics (though it might
+be supported by high authority) led to consequences too frightful to
+be entertained by people who were busied in building their dogmatic
+house on the sands of early Church history. If, as the Romanists
+maintained, an unbroken series of genuine miracles adorned the records
+of their Church, throughout the whole of its existence, no Anglican
+could lightly venture to accuse them of doctrinal corruption. Hence,
+the Anglicans, who indulged in such accusations, were bound to prove
+the modern, the medi&aelig;val Roman, and the later Patristic miracles
+false; and to shut off the wonder-working <!-- Page 366 -->power from the Church at
+the exact point of time when Anglican doctrine ceased and Roman
+doctrine began. With a little adjustment&mdash;a squeeze here and a pull
+there&mdash;the Christianity of the first three or four centuries might be
+made to fit, or seem to fit, pretty well into the Anglican scheme. So
+the miracles, from Justin say to Jerome, might be recognised; while,
+in later times, the Church having become &quot;corrupt&quot;&mdash;that is to say,
+having pursued one and the same line of development further than was
+pleasing to Anglicans&mdash;its alleged miracles must needs be shams and
+impostures.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, it may be imagined that the establishment
+of a scientific frontier between the earlier realm of supposed fact
+and the later of asserted delusion, had its difficulties; and torrents
+of theological special pleading about the subject flowed from clerical
+pens; until that learned and acute Anglican divine, Conyers Middleton,
+in his &quot;Free Inquiry,&quot; tore the sophistical web they had laboriously
+woven to pieces, and demonstrated that the miracles of the patristic
+age, early and late, must stand or fall together, inasmuch as the
+evidence for the later is just as good as the evidence for the earlier
+wonders. If the one set are certified by contemporaneous witnesses of
+high repute, so are the other; and, in point of probability, there is
+not a pin to choose between the two. That is the solid and
+irrefragable, <!-- Page 367 -->result of Middleton's contribution to the subject. But
+the Free Inquirer's freedom had its limits; and he draws a sharp line
+of demarcation between the patristic and the New Testament
+miracles&mdash;on the professed ground that the accounts of the latter,
+being inspired, are out of the reach of criticism.</p>
+
+<p>A century later, the question was taken up by another divine,
+Middleton's equal in learning and acuteness, and far his superior in
+subtlety and dialectic skill; who, though an Anglican, scorned the
+name of Protestant; and, while yet a Churchman, made it his business
+to parade, with infinite skill, the utter hollowness of the arguments
+of those of his brother Churchmen who dreamed that they could be both
+Anglicans and Protestants. The argument of the &quot;Essay on the Miracles
+recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of the Early Ages&quot;<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88" ></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> by the
+present [1889] Roman Cardinal, but then Anglican Doctor, John Henry
+Newman, is compendiously stated by himself in the following passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>If the miracles of Church history cannot be defended by the
+     arguments of Leslie, Lyttleton, Paley, or Douglas, how many
+     of the Scripture miracles satisfy their conditions? (p.
+     cvii).</p></div>
+
+<p>And, although the answer is not given in so many words, little doubt
+is left on the mind of the <!-- Page 368 -->reader, that, in the mind of the writer,
+it is: None. In fact, this conclusion is one which cannot be resisted,
+if the argument in favour of the Scripture miracles is based upon that
+which laymen, whether lawyers, or men of science, or historians, or
+ordinary men of affairs, call evidence. But there is something really
+impressive in the magnificent contempt with which, at times, Dr.
+Newman sweeps aside alike those who offer and those who demand such
+evidence.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Some infidel authors advise us to accept no miracles which
+     would not have a verdict in their favour in a court of
+     justice; that is, they employ against Scripture a weapon
+     which Protestants would confine to attacks upon the Church;
+     as if moral and religious questions required legal proof,
+     and evidence were the test of truth<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89" ></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> (p. cvii).</p></div>
+
+<p>&quot;As if evidence were the test of truth&quot;!&mdash;although the truth in
+question is the occurrence, or the non-occurrence, of certain
+phenomena at a certain time and in a certain place. This sudden
+revelation of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical and the
+scientific mind is enough to take away the breath of any one
+unfamiliar with the clerical organon. As if, one may retort, the
+assumption <!-- Page 369 -->that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a religious
+end, in any way alters the fact that they profess to be historical
+events, things that actually happened; and, as such, must needs be
+exactly those subjects about which evidence is appropriate and legal
+proofs (which are such merely because they afford adequate evidence)
+may be justly demanded. The Gadarene miracle either happened, or it
+did not. Whether the Gadarene &quot;question&quot; is moral or religious, or
+not, has nothing to do with the fact that it is a purely historical
+question whether the demons said what they are declared to have said,
+and the devil-possessed pigs did, or did not, rush over the heights
+bounding the Lake of Gennesaret on a certain day of a certain year,
+after A.D. 26 and before A.D. 36; for vague and uncertain as New
+Testament chronology is, I suppose it may be assumed that the event in
+question, if it happened at all, took place during the procuratorship
+of Pilate. If that is not a matter about which evidence ought to be
+required, and not only legal, but strict scientific proof demanded by
+sane men who are asked to believe the story&mdash;what is? Is a reasonable
+being to be seriously asked to credit statements which, to put the
+case gently, are not exactly probable, and on the acceptance or
+rejection of which his whole view of life may depend, without asking
+for as much &quot;legal&quot; proof as would send an alleged pickpocket to gaol,
+or as <!-- Page 370 -->would suffice to prove the validity of a disputed will?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Infidel authors&quot; (if, as I am assured, I may answer for them) will
+decline to waste time on mere darkenings of counsel of this sort; but
+to those Anglicans who accept his premises, Dr. Newman is a truly
+formidable antagonist. What, indeed, are they to reply when he puts
+the very pertinent question:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>whether persons who not merely question, but prejudge the
+     Ecclesiastical miracles on the ground of their want of
+     resemblance, whatever that be, to those contained in
+     Scripture&mdash;as if the Almighty could not do in the Christian
+     Church what He had not already done at the time of its
+     foundation, or under the Mosaic Covenant&mdash;whether such
+     reasoners are not siding with the sceptic,</p></div>
+
+<p>and</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>whether it is not a happy inconsistency by which they
+     continue to believe the Scriptures while they reject the
+     Church<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90" ></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> (p. liii).</p></div>
+
+<p>Again, I invite Anglican orthodoxy to consider this passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>the narrative of the combats of St. Anthony with evil
+     spirits, is a development rather than a contradiction of
+     revelation, viz. of such texts as speak of Satan being cast
+     out by prayer and fasting. To be shocked, then, at the
+     miracles of Ecclesiastical history, or to ridicule them for
+     their strangeness, is no part of a scriptural philosophy
+     (pp. liii-liv).</p></div>
+<!-- Page 371 --><p>Further on, Dr. Newman declares that it has been admitted</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>that a distinct line can be drawn in point of character and
+     circumstance between the miracles of Scripture and of Church
+     history; but this is by no means the case (p. lv) ...
+     specimens are not wanting in the history of the Church, of
+     miracles as awful in their character and as momentous in
+     their effects as those which are recorded in Scripture. The
+     fire interrupting the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, and
+     the death of Arius, are instances, in Ecclesiastical
+     history, of such solemn events. On the other hand, difficult
+     instances in the Scripture history are such as these: the
+     serpent in Eden, the Ark, Jacob's vision for the
+     multiplication of his cattle, the speaking of Balaam's ass,
+     the axe swimming at Elisha's word, the miracle on the swine,
+     and various instances of prayers or prophecies, in which, as
+     in that of Noah's blessing and curse, words which seem the
+     result of private feeling are expressly or virtually
+     ascribed to a Divine suggestion (p. lvi).</p></div>
+
+<p>Who is to gainsay our ecclesiastical authority here? &quot;Infidel authors&quot;
+might be accused of a wish to ridicule the Scripture miracles by
+putting them on a level with the remarkable story about the fire which
+stopped the rebuilding of the Temple, or that about the death of
+Arius&mdash;but Dr. Newman is above suspicion. The pity is that his list of
+what he delicately terms &quot;difficult&quot; instances is so short. Why omit
+the manufacture of Eve out of Adam's rib, on the strict historical
+accuracy of which the chief argument of the defenders of an iniquitous
+portion of our present law depends? Why leave out the <!-- Page 372 -->account of the
+&quot;Bene Elohim&quot; and their gallantries, on which a large part of the
+worst practices of the medi&aelig;val inquisitors into witchcraft was based?
+Why forget the angel who wrestled with Jacob, and, as the account
+suggests, somewhat over-stepped the bounds of fair play, at the end of
+the struggle? Surely, we must agree with Dr. Newman that, if all these
+camels have gone down, it savours of affectation to strain at such
+gnats as the sudden ailment of Arius in the midst of his deadly, if
+prayerful,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91" ></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> enemies; and the fiery explosion which stopped the
+Julian building operations. Though the <i>words</i> of the &quot;Conclusion&quot; of
+the &quot;Essay on Miracles&quot; may, perhaps, be quoted against me, I may
+express my satisfaction at finding myself in substantial accordance
+with a theologian above all suspicion of heterodoxy. With all my
+heart, I can declare my belief that there is just as good reason for
+believing in the miraculous slaying of the man who fell short of the
+Athanasian <!-- Page 373 -->power of affirming contradictories, with respect to the
+nature of the Godhead, as there is for believing in the stories of the
+serpent and the ark told in Genesis, the speaking of Balaam's ass in
+Numbers, or the floating of the axe, at Elisha's order, in the second
+book of Kings.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It is one of the peculiarities of a really sound argument that it is
+susceptible of the fullest development; and that it sometimes leads to
+conclusions unexpected by those who employ it. To my mind, it is
+impossible to refuse to follow Dr. Newman when he extends his
+reasoning, from the miracles of the patristic and medi&aelig;val ages
+backward in time, as far as miracles are recorded. But, if the rules
+of logic are valid, I feel compelled to extend the argument forwards
+to the alleged Roman miracles of the present day, which Dr. Newman
+might not have admitted, but which Cardinal Newman may hardly reject.
+Beyond question, there is as good, or perhaps better, evidence for the
+miracles worked by our Lady of Lourdes, as there is for the floating
+of Elisha's axe, or the speaking of Balaam's ass. But we must go still
+further; there is a modern system of thaumaturgy and demonology which
+is just as well certified as the ancient.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92" ></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> Veracious, excellent,
+<!-- Page 374 -->sometimes learned and acute persons, even philosophers of no mean
+pretensions, testify to the &quot;levitation&quot; of bodies much heavier than
+Elisha's axe; to the existence of &quot;spirits&quot; who, to the mere tactile
+sense, have been indistinguishable from flesh and blood; and,
+occasionally, have wrested with all the vigour of Jacob's opponent;
+yet, further, to the speech, in the language of raps, of spiritual
+beings, whose discourses, in point of coherence and value, are far
+inferior to that of Balaam's humble but sagacious steed. I have not
+the smallest doubt that, if these were persecuting times, there is
+many a worthy &quot;spiritualist&quot; who would cheerfully go to the stake in
+support of his pneumatological faith; and furnish evidence, after
+Paley's own heart, in proof of the truth of his doctrines. Not a few
+modern divines, doubtless <!-- Page 375 -->struck by the impossibility of refusing the
+spiritualist evidence, if the ecclesiastical evidence is accepted, and
+deprived of any <i>&agrave; priori</i> objection by their implicit belief in
+Christian Demonology, show themselves ready to take poor Sludge
+seriously, and to believe that he is possessed by other devils than
+those of need, greed, and vainglory.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, it was to be expected, though it is none
+the less interesting to note the fact, that the arguments of the
+latest school of &quot;spiritualists&quot; present a wonderful family likeness
+to those which adorn the subtle disquisitions of the advocate of
+ecclesiastical miracles of forty years ago. It is unfortunate for the
+&quot;spiritualists&quot; that, over and over again, celebrated and trusted
+media, who really, in some respects, call to mind the Montanist<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93" ></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a>
+and gnostic seers of the second century, are either proved in courts
+of law to be fraudulent impostors; or, in sheer weariness, as it would
+seem, of the honest dupes who swear by them, spontaneously confess
+<!-- Page 376 -->their long-continued iniquities, as the Fox women did the other day
+in New York.<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94" ></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> But, whenever a catastrophe of this kind takes place,
+the believers are no wise dismayed by it. They freely admit that not
+only the media, but the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to
+lose sight of the elementary principles of right and wrong; and they
+triumphantly ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures
+disprove the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which
+have not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in this,
+they unconsciously plagiarise from the churchman, who just as freely
+admits that many ecclesiastical miracles may have been forged; and
+asks, with calm contempt, not only of legal proofs, but of
+common-sense probability, Why does it follow that none are to be
+supposed genuine? I must say, however, that the spiritualists, so far
+as I know, do not venture to outrage right reason so boldly as the
+ecclesiastics. They do not sneer at &quot;evidence&quot;; nor repudiate the
+requirement of legal proofs. In fact, there can be no doubt that the
+spiritualists produce better evidence for their manifestations than
+can be shown either for the miraculous death of Arius, or for the
+Invention of the Cross.<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95" ></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 377 -->From the &quot;levitation&quot; of the axe at one end of a period of near three
+thousand years to the &quot;levitation&quot; of Sludge &amp; Co. at the other end,
+there is a complete continuity of the miraculous, with every
+gradation, from the childish to the stupendous, from the gratification
+of a caprice to the illustration of sublime truth. There is no drawing
+a line in the series that might be set out of plausibly attested cases
+of spiritual intervention. If one is true, all may be true; if one is
+false, all may be false.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This is, to my mind, the inevitable result of that method of reasoning
+which is applied to the confutation of Protestantism, with so much
+success, by one of the acutest and subtlest disputants who have ever
+championed Ecclesiasticism&mdash;and one cannot put his claims to acuteness
+and subtlety higher.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>... the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If
+     ever there were a safe truth it is this.... &quot;To be deep in
+     history is to cease to be a Protestant.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96" ></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>I have not a shadow of doubt that these anti-Protestant epigrams are
+profoundly true. But I have as little that, in the same sense, the
+&quot;Christianity <!-- Page 378 -->of history is not&quot; Romanism; and that to be deeper in
+history is to cease to be a Romanist. The reasons which compel my
+doubts about the compatibility of the Roman doctrine, or any other
+form of Catholicism, with history, arise out of exactly the same line
+of argument as that adopted by Dr. Newman in the famous essay which I
+have just cited. If, with one hand, Dr. Newman has destroyed
+Protestantism, he has annihilated Romanism with the other; and the
+total result of his ambidextral efforts is to shake Christianity to
+its foundations. Nor was any one better aware that this must be the
+inevitable result of his arguments&mdash;if the world should refuse to
+accept Roman doctrines and Roman miracles&mdash;than the writer of Tract
+85.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Newman made his choice and passed over to the Roman Church half a
+century ago. Some of those who were essentially in harmony with his
+views preceded, and many followed him. But many remained; and, as the
+quondam Puseyite and present Ritualistic party, they are continuing
+that work of sapping and mining the Protestantism of the Anglican
+Church which he and his friends so ably commenced. At the present
+time, they have no little claim to be considered victorious all along
+the line. I am old enough to recollect the small beginnings of the
+Tractarian party; and I am amazed when I consider the present position
+of their heirs. Their little leaven <!-- Page 379 -->has leavened if not the whole,
+yet a very large lump of the Anglican Church; which is now pretty much
+of a preparatory school for Papistry. So that it really behoves
+Englishmen (who, as I have been informed by high authority, are all
+legally, members of the State Church, if they profess to belong to no
+other sect) to wake up to what that powerful organization is about,
+and whither it is tending. On this point, the writings of Dr. Newman,
+while he still remained within the Anglican fold, are a vast store of
+the best and the most authoritative information. His doctrines on
+Ecclesiastical miracles and on Development are the corner-stones of
+the Tractarian fabric. He believed that his arguments led either
+Romeward, or to what ecclesiastics call &quot;Infidelity,&quot; and I call
+Agnosticism. I believe that he was quite right in this conviction; but
+while he chooses the one alternative, I choose the other; as he
+rejects Protestantism on the ground of its incompatibility with
+history, so, <i>a fortiori</i>, I conceive that Romanism ought to be
+rejected; and that an impartial consideration of the evidence must
+refuse the authority of Jesus to anything more than the Nazarenism of
+James and Peter and John. And let it not be supposed that this is a
+mere &quot;infidel&quot; perversion of the facts. No one has more openly and
+clearly admitted the possibility that they may be fairly interpreted
+in this way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, <!-- Page 380 -->there are texts which seem
+to show that Jesus contemplated the evangelisation of the heathen:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>... Did not the Apostles hear our Lord? and what was <i>their</i>
+     impression from what they heard? Is it not certain that the
+     Apostles did not gather this truth from His teaching? (Tract
+     85, p. 63).</p>
+
+<p>     He said, &quot;Preach the Gospel to every creature.&quot; These words
+     <i>need</i> have only meant &quot;Bring all men to Christianity
+     through Judaism.&quot; Make them Jews, that they may enjoy
+     Christ's privileges, which are lodged in Judaism; teach them
+     those rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which
+     hitherto have been dead ordinances, and now are living; and
+     so the Apostles seem to have understood them (<i>ibid</i>. p.
+     65).</p></div>
+
+<p>So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary orthodox
+Judaism, it seems to have tended towards a revival of the ethical and
+religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by the belief in
+Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which had grown round
+Judaism subsequently to the exile. To these belong the doctrines of
+the Resurrection, of the Last Judgment, of Heaven and Hell; of the
+hierarchy of good angels; of Satan and the hierarchy of evil spirits.
+And there is very strong ground for believing that all these
+doctrines, at least in the shapes in which they were held by the
+post-exilic Jews, were derived from Persian and Babylonian<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97" ></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>
+sources, and are essentially of heathen origin.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 381 -->How far Jesus positively sanctioned all these indrainings of
+circumjacent Paganism into Judaism; how far any one has a right to
+declare, that the refusal to accept one or other of these doctrines,
+as ascertained verities, comes to the same thing as contradicting
+Jesus, it appears to me not easy to say. But it is hardly less
+difficult to conceive that he could have distinctly negatived any of
+them; and, more especially, that demonology which has been accepted by
+the Christian Churches, in every age and under all their mutual
+antagonisms. But, I repeat my conviction that, whether Jesus
+sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation or not, it is doomed.
+The future of Christianity, as a dogmatic system and apart from the
+old Israelitish ethics which it has appropriated and developed, lies
+in the answer which mankind will eventually give to the question,
+whether they are prepared to believe such stories as the Gadarene and
+the pneumatological hypotheses which go with it, or not. My belief is
+they will decline to do anything of the sort, whenever and wherever
+their minds have been disciplined by science. And that discipline
+must, and will, at once follow and lead the footsteps of advancing
+civilisation.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 382 -->The preceding pages were written before I became acquainted with the
+contents of the May number of the &quot;Nineteenth Century,&quot; wherein I
+discover many things which are decidedly not to my advantage. It would
+appear that &quot;evasion&quot; is my chief resource, &quot;incapacity for strict
+argument&quot; and &quot;rottenness of ratiocination&quot; my main mental
+characteristics, and that it is &quot;barely credible&quot; that a statement
+which I profess to make of my own knowledge is true. All which things
+I notice, merely to illustrate the great truth, forced on me by long
+experience, that it is only from those who enjoy the blessing of a
+firm hold of the Christian faith that such manifestations of meekness,
+patience, and charity are to be expected.</p>
+
+<p>I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers, could
+entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main issue, as
+it has been stated and restated by my opponent:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>an Agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to
+     God must not only refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted
+     teaching, but must deny the reality of the spiritual
+     convictions in which He lived.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98" ></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>That is said to be &quot;the simple question which is at issue between us,&quot;
+and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convictions
+selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Story
+of the Passion.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 383 -->My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been: In the first
+place, the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings and
+the convictions of Jesus is extremely uncertain; so that what
+ecclesiastics are pleased to call a denial of them may be nothing of
+the kind. And, in the second place, if Jesus taught the demonological
+system involved in the Gadarene story&mdash;if a belief in that system
+formed a part of the spiritual convictions in which he lived and
+died&mdash;then I, for my part, unhesitatingly refuse belief in that
+teaching, and deny the reality of those spiritual convictions. And I
+go further and add, that, exactly in so far as it can be proved that
+Jesus sanctioned the essentially pagan demonological theories current
+among the Jews of his age, exactly in so far, for me, will his
+authority in any matter touching the spiritual world be weakened.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to the first half of my answer, I have pointed out that
+the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first Gospel, is, in the
+opinion of the best critics, a &quot;mosaic work&quot; of materials derived from
+different sources, and I do not understand that this statement is
+challenged. The only other Gospel&mdash;the third&mdash;which contains something
+like it, makes, not only the discourse, but the circumstances under
+which it was delivered, very different. Now, it is one thing to say
+that there was something real at the bottom of the two
+discourses&mdash;which <!-- Page 384 -->is quite possible; and another to affirm that we
+have any right to say what that something was, or to fix upon any
+particular phrase and declare it to be a genuine utterance. Those who
+pursue theology as a science, and bring to the study an adequate
+knowledge of the ways of ancient historians, will find no difficulty
+in providing illustrations of my meaning. I may supply one which has
+come within range of my own limited vision.</p>
+
+<p>In Josephus's &quot;History of the Wars of the Jews&quot; (chap, xix.), that
+writer reports a speech which he says Herod made at the opening of a
+war with the Arabians. It is in the first person, and would naturally
+be supposed by the reader to be intended for a true version of what
+Herod said. In the &quot;Antiquities,&quot; written some seventeen years later,
+the same writer gives another report, also in the first person, of
+Herod's speech on the same occasion. This second oration is twice as
+long as the first and, though the general tenor of the two speeches is
+pretty much the same, there is hardly any verbal identity, and a good
+deal of matter is introduced into the one, which is absent from the
+other. Josephus prides himself on his accuracy; people whose fathers
+might have heard Herod's oration were his contemporaries; and yet his
+historical sense is so curiously undeveloped that he can, quite
+innocently, perpetrate an obvious literary fabrication; for one of the
+two accounts <!-- Page 385 -->must be incorrect. Now, if I am asked whether I believe
+that Herod made some particular statement on this occasion; whether,
+for example, he uttered the pious aphorism, &quot;Where God is, there is
+both multitude and courage,&quot; which is given in the &quot;Antiquities,&quot; but
+not in the &quot;Wars,&quot; I am compelled to say I do not know. One of the two
+reports must be erroneous, possibly both are: at any rate, I cannot
+tell how much of either is true. And, if some fervent admirer of the
+Idumean should build up a theory of Herod's piety upon Josephus's
+evidence that he propounded the aphorism, it is a &quot;mere evasion&quot; to
+say, in reply, that the evidence that he did utter it is worthless?</p>
+
+<p>It appears again that, adopting the tactics of Conachar when brought
+face to face with Hal o' the Wynd, I have been trying to get my
+simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose chase through the
+early history of Christianity, in the hope of escaping impending
+defeat on the main issue. But I may be permitted to point out that
+there is an alternative hypothesis which equally fits the facts; and
+that, after all, there may have been method in the madness of my
+supposed panic.</p>
+
+<p>For suppose it to be established that Gentile Christianity was a
+totally different thing from the Nazarenism of Jesus and his immediate
+disciples; suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as the <!-- Page 386 -->sixth
+decade of our era at least, there were violent divergencies of opinion
+among the followers of Jesus; suppose it to be hardly doubtful that
+the Gospels and the Acts took their present shapes under the influence
+of those divergencies; suppose that their authors, and those through
+whose hands they passed, had notions of historical veracity not more
+eccentric than those which Josephus occasionally displays: surely the
+chances that the Gospels are altogether trustworthy records of the
+teachings of Jesus become very slender. And, since the whole of the
+case of the other side is based on the supposition that they are
+accurate records (especially of speeches, about which ancient
+historians are so curiously loose), I really do venture to submit that
+this part of my argument bears very seriously on the main issue; and,
+as ratiocination, is sound to the core.</p>
+
+<p>Again, when I passed by the topic of the speeches of Jesus on the
+Cross, it appears that I could have had no other motive than the
+dictates of my native evasiveness. An ecclesiastical dignitary may
+have respectable reasons for declining a fencing match &quot;in sight of
+Gethsemane and Calvary&quot;; but an ecclesiastical &quot;Infidel&quot;! Never. It is
+obviously impossible that in the belief that &quot;the greater includes the
+less,&quot; I, having declared the Gospel evidence in general, as to the
+sayings of Jesus, to be of questionable value, thought it needless to
+select for illustration of my views, those <!-- Page 387 -->particular instances which
+were likely to be most offensive to persons of another way of
+thinking. But any supposition that may have been entertained that the
+old familiar tones of the ecclesiastical war-drum will tempt me to
+engage in such needless discussion had better be renounced. I shall do
+nothing of the kind. Let it suffice that I ask my readers to turn to
+the twenty-third chapter of Luke (revised version), verse thirty-four,
+and he will find in the margin</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Some ancient authorities omit: And Jesus said &quot;Father,
+     forgive them, for they know not what they do.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>So that, even as late as the fourth century, there were ancient
+authorities, indeed some of the most ancient and weightiest, who
+either did not know of this utterance, so often quoted as
+characteristic of Jesus, or did not believe it had been uttered.</p>
+
+<p>Many years ago, I received an anonymous letter, which abused me
+heartily for my want of moral courage in not speaking out. I thought
+that one of the oddest charges an anonymous letter-writer could bring.
+But I am not sure that the plentiful sowing of the pages of the
+article with which I am dealing with accusations of evasion, may not
+seem odder to those who consider that the main strength of the answers
+with which I have been favoured (in this review and elsewhere) is
+devoted not to anything in the text of my first paper, but to a note
+which occurs at p. 212. In this I say:<!-- Page 388 --></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Dr. Wace tells us: &quot;It may be asked how far we can rely on
+     the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on these
+     subjects.&quot; And he seems to think the question appropriately
+     answered by the assertion that it &quot;ought to be regarded as
+     settled by M. Renan's practical surrender of the adverse
+     case.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>I requested Dr. Wace to point out the passages of M. Renan's works in
+which, as he affirms, this &quot;practical surrender&quot; (not merely as to the
+age and authorship of the Gospels, be it observed, but as to their
+historical value) is made, and he has been so good as to do so. Now
+let us consider the parts of Dr. Wace's citation from Renan which are
+relevant to the issue:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The author of this Gospel [Luke] is certainly the same as
+     the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now the author of
+     the Acts seems to be a companion of St. Paul&mdash;a character
+     which accords completely with St. Luke. I know that more
+     than one objection may be opposed to this reasoning: but one
+     thing, at all events, is beyond doubt, namely, that the
+     author of the third Gospel and of the Acts is a man who
+     belonged to the second apostolic generation; and this
+     suffices for our purpose.</p></div>
+
+<p>This is a curious &quot;practical surrender of the adverse case.&quot; M. Renan
+thinks that there is no doubt that the author of the third Gospel is
+the author of the Acts&mdash;a conclusion in which I suppose critics
+generally agree. He goes on to remark that this person <i>seems</i> to be a
+companion of St. Paul, and adds that Luke was a companion of St. Paul.
+Then, somewhat needlessly, M. Renan points out that there is more than
+one <!-- Page 389 -->objection to jumping, from such data as these, to the conclusion
+that &quot;Luke&quot; is the writer of the third Gospel. And, finally, M. Renan
+is content to reduce that which is &quot;beyond doubt&quot; to the fact that the
+author of the two books is a man of the second apostolic generation.
+Well, it seems to me that I could agree with all that M. Renan
+considers &quot;beyond doubt&quot; here, without surrendering anything, either
+&quot;practically&quot; or theoretically.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Wace (&quot;Nineteenth Century,&quot; March, p. 363) states that he derives
+the above citation from the preface to the 15th edition of the &quot;Vie de
+J&eacute;sus.&quot; My copy of &quot;Les &Eacute;vangiles,&quot; dated 1877, contains a list of
+Renan's &quot;Oeuvres Compl&egrave;tes,&quot; at the head of which I find &quot;Vie de
+J&eacute;sus,&quot; 15<sup>e</sup> &eacute;dition. It is, therefore, a later work than the edition
+of the &quot;Vie de J&eacute;sus&quot; which Dr. Wace quotes. Now &quot;Les &Eacute;vangiles,&quot; as
+its name implies, treats fully of the questions respecting the date
+and authorship of the Gospels; and any one who desired, not merely to
+use M. Renan's expressions for controversial purposes, but to give a
+fair account of his views in their full significance, would, I think,
+refer to the later source.</p>
+
+<p>If this course had been taken, Dr. Wace might have found some as
+decided expressions of opinion, in favour of Luke's authorship of the
+third Gospel, as he has discovered in &quot;The Apostles.&quot; I mention this
+circumstance, because I desire to point out that, taking even the
+strongest of Renan's <!-- Page 390 -->statements, I am still at a loss to see how it
+justifies that large-sounding phrase, &quot;practical surrender of the
+adverse case.&quot; For, on p. 438 of &quot;Les &Eacute;vangiles,&quot; Renan speaks of the
+way in which Luke's &quot;excellent intentions&quot; have led him to torture
+history in the Acts; he declares Luke to be the founder of that
+&quot;eternal fiction which is called ecclesiastical history&quot;; and, on the
+preceding page, he talks of the &quot;myth&quot; of the Ascension&mdash;with its
+&quot;<i>mise en sc&egrave;ne voulue</i>.&quot; At p. 435, I find &quot;Luc, ou l'auteur quel
+qu'il soit du troisi&egrave;me &Eacute;vangile&quot;; at p. 280, the accounts of the
+Passion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, are said to be &quot;peu
+historiques&quot;; at p. 283, &quot;La valeur historique du troisi&egrave;me &Eacute;vangile
+est s&ucirc;rement moindre que celles des deux premiers.&quot; A Pyrrhic sort of
+victory for orthodoxy, this &quot;surrender&quot;! And, all the while, the
+scientific student of theology knows that, the more reason there may
+be to believe that Luke was the companion of Paul, the more doubtful
+becomes his credibility if he really wrote the Acts. For, in that
+case, he could not fail to have been acquainted with Paul's account of
+the Jerusalem conference and he must have consciously misrepresented
+it.</p>
+
+<p>We may next turn to the essential part of Dr. Wace's citation
+(&quot;Nineteenth Century,&quot; p. 365) touching the first Gospel:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>St. Matthew evidently deserves peculiar confidence for the
+     discourses. Here are the &quot;oracles&quot;&mdash;the very notes <!-- Page 391 -->taken
+     while the memory of the instruction of Jesus was living and
+     definite.</p></div>
+
+<p>M. Renan here expresses the very general opinion as to the existence
+of a collection of &quot;logia,&quot; having a different origin from the text in
+which they are embedded, in Matthew. &quot;Notes&quot; are somewhat suggestive
+of a shorthand writer, but the suggestion is unintentional, for M.
+Renan assumes that these &quot;notes&quot; were taken, not at the time of the
+delivery of the &quot;logia&quot; but subsequently, while (as he assumes) the
+memory of them was living and definite; so that, in this very
+citation, M. Renan leaves open the question of the general historical
+value of the first Gospel; while it is obvious that the accuracy of
+&quot;Notes&quot; taken, not at the time of delivery, but from memory, is a
+matter about which more than one opinion may be fairly held. Moreover,
+Renan expressly calls attention to the difficulty of distinguishing
+the authentic &quot;logia&quot; from later additions of the same kind (&quot;Les
+&Eacute;vangiles,&quot; p. 201). The fact is, there is no contradiction here to
+that opinion about the first Gospel which is expressed in &quot;Les
+&Eacute;vangiles&quot; (p. 175).</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The text of the so-called Matthew supposes the pre-existence
+     of that of Mark, and does little more than complete it. He
+     completes it in two fashions&mdash;first, by the insertion of
+     those long discourses which gave their chief value to the
+     Hebrew Gospels; then by adding traditions of a more modern
+     formation, results of successive developments of the legend,
+     and to which the Christian consciousness already attached
+     infinite value.</p></div>
+
+<p><!-- Page 392 -->M. Renan goes on to suggest that besides &quot;Mark,&quot; &quot;pseudo-Matthew&quot;
+used an Aramaic version of the Gospel, originally set forth in that
+dialect. Finally, as to the second Gospel (&quot;Nineteenth Century,&quot; p.
+365):&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>He [Mark] is full of minute observations, proceeding, beyond
+     doubt, from an eye-witness. There is nothing to conflict
+     with the supposition that this eye-witness ... was the
+     Apostle Peter himself, as Papias has it.</p></div>
+
+<p>Let us consider this citation by the light of &quot;Les &Eacute;vangiles&quot;:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This work, although composed after the death of Peter, was,
+     in a sense, the work of Peter; it represents the way in
+     which Peter was accustomed to relate the life of Jesus (p.
+     116).</p></div>
+
+<p>M. Renan goes on to say that, as an historical document, the Gospel of
+Mark has a great superiority (p. 116); but Mark has a motive for
+omitting the discourses, and he attaches a &quot;puerile importance&quot; to
+miracles (p. 117). The Gospel of Mark is less a legend, than a
+biography written with credulity (p. 118). It would be rash to say
+that Mark has not been interpolated and retouched (p. 120).</p>
+
+<p>If any one thinks that I have not been warranted in drawing a sharp
+distinction between &quot;scientific theologians&quot; and &quot;counsels for
+creeds&quot;; or that my warning against the too ready acceptance of
+certain declarations as to the state of biblical criticism was
+needless; or that my anxiety <!-- Page 393 -->as to the sense of the word &quot;practical&quot;
+was superfluous; let him compare the statement that M. Renan has made
+a &quot;practical surrender of the adverse case&quot; with the facts just set
+forth. For what is the adverse case? The question, as Dr. Wace puts
+it, is, &quot;It may be asked how far can we rely on the accounts we
+possess of our Lord's teaching on these subjects.&quot; It will be obvious
+that M. Renan's statements amount to an adverse answer&mdash;to a
+&quot;practical&quot; denial that any great reliance can be placed on these
+accounts. He does not believe that Matthew, the apostle, wrote the
+first Gospel; he does not profess to know who is responsible for the
+collection of &quot;logia,&quot; or how many of them are authentic; though he
+calls the second Gospel the most historical, he points out that it is
+written with credulity, and may have been interpolated and retouched;
+and, as to the author, &quot;quel qu'il soit,&quot; of the third Gospel, who is
+to &quot;rely on the accounts&quot; of a writer, who deserves the cavalier
+treatment which &quot;Luke&quot; meets with at M. Renan's hands.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat what I have already more than once said, that the question of
+the age and the authorship of the Gospels has not, in my judgment, the
+importance which is so commonly assigned to it; for the simple reason
+that the reports, even of eye-witnesses, would not suffice to justify
+belief in a large and essential part of their contents; on the
+contrary, these reports would discredit the <!-- Page 394 -->witnesses. The Gadarene
+miracle, for example, is so extremely improbable, that the fact of its
+being reported by three, even independent, authorities could not
+justify belief in it, unless we had the clearest evidence as to their
+capacity as observers and as interpreters of their observations. But
+it is evident that the three authorities are not independent; that
+they have simply adopted a legend, of which there were two versions;
+and instead of their proving its truth, it suggests their
+superstitious credulity: so that if &quot;Matthew,&quot; &quot;Mark,&quot; and &quot;Luke&quot; are
+really responsible for the Gospels, it is not the better for the
+Gadarene story, but the worse for them.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful amount of controversial capital has been made out of my
+assertion in the note to which I have referred, as an <i>obiter dictum</i>
+of no consequence to my argument, that if Renan's work<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99" ></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> were
+non-extant, the main results of biblical criticism, as set forth in
+the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not
+be sensibly affected. I thought I had explained it satisfactorily
+already, but it seems that my explanation has only exhibited still
+more of my native perversity, so I ask for one more chance.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the historical development of any branch of science,
+what is universally observed <!-- Page 395 -->is this: that the men who make epochs,
+and are the real architects of the fabric of exact knowledge, are
+those who introduce fruitful ideas or methods. As a rule, the man who
+does this pushes his idea, or his method, too far; or, if he does not,
+his school is sure to do so; and those who follow have to reduce his
+work to its proper value, and assign it its place in the whole. Not
+unfrequently, they, in their turn, overdo the critical process, and,
+in trying to eliminate error, throw away truth.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, as I said, Linn&aelig;us, Buffon, Cuvier, Lamarck, really &quot;set forth
+the results&quot; of a developing science, although they often heartily
+contradict one another. Notwithstanding this circumstance, modern
+classificatory method and nomenclature have largely grown out of the
+work of Linn&aelig;us; the modern conception of biology, as a science, and
+of its relation to climatology, geography, and geology, are, as
+largely, rooted in the results of the labours of Buffon; comparative
+anatomy and pal&aelig;ontology owe a vast debt to Cuvier's results; while
+invertebrate zoology and the revival of the idea of evolution are
+intimately dependent on the results of the work of Lamarck. In other
+words, the main results of biology up to the early years of this
+century are to be found in, or spring out of, the works of these men.</p>
+
+<p>So, if I mistake not, Strauss, if he did not originate the idea of
+taking the mythop&oelig;ic faculty <!-- Page 396 -->into account in the development of the
+Gospel narratives, and though he may have exaggerated the influence of
+that faculty, obliged scientific theology, hereafter, to take that
+element into serious consideration; so Baur, in giving prominence to
+the cardinal fact of the divergence of the Nazarene and Pauline
+tendencies in the primitive Church; so Reuss, in setting a marvellous
+example of the cool and dispassionate application of the principles of
+scientific criticism over the whole field of Scripture; so Volkmar, in
+his clear and forcible statement of the Nazarene limitations of Jesus,
+contributed results of permanent value in scientific theology. I took
+these names as they occurred to me. Undoubtedly, I might have
+advantageously added to them; perhaps, I might have made a better
+selection. But it really is absurd to try to make out that I did not
+know that these writers widely disagree; and I believe that no
+scientific theologian will deny that, in principle, what I have said
+is perfectly correct. Ecclesiastical advocates, of course, cannot be
+expected to take this view of the matter. To them, these mere seekers
+after truth, in so far as their results are unfavourable to the creed
+the clerics have to support, are more or less &quot;infidels,&quot; or favourers
+of &quot;infidelity&quot;; and the only thing they care to see, or probably can
+see, is the fact that, in a great many matters, the truth-seekers
+differ from one another, and therefore can easily be exhibited <!-- Page 397 -->to the
+public, as if they did nothing else; as if any one who referred to
+their having, each and all, contributed his share to the results of
+theological science, was merely showing his ignorance; and as if a
+charge of inconsistency could be based on the fact that he himself
+often disagrees with what they say. I have never lent a shadow of
+foundation to the assumption that I am a follower of either Strauss,
+or Baur, or Reuss, or Volkmar, or Renan; my debts to these eminent
+men&mdash;so far my superiors in theological knowledge&mdash;is, indeed, great;
+yet it is not for their opinions, but for those I have been able to
+form for myself, by their help.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Agnosticism: a Rejoinder</i> (p. 266), I have referred to the
+difficulties under which those professors of the science of theology,
+whose tenure of their posts depends on the results of their
+investigations, must labour; and, in a note, I add&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Imagine that all our chairs of Astronomy had been founded in
+     the fourteenth century, and that their incumbents were bound
+     to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with every respect
+     for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and
+     expound the truth, I think men of common sense would go
+     elsewhere to learn astronomy.</p></div>
+
+<p>I did not write this paragraph without a knowledge that its sense
+would be open to the kind of perversion which it has suffered; but, if
+that was clear, the necessity for the statement was still clearer. It
+is my deliberate opinion: I reiterate <!-- Page 398 -->it; and I say that, in my
+judgment, it is extremely inexpedient that any subject which calls
+itself a science should be intrusted to teachers who are debarred from
+freely following out scientific methods to their legitimate
+conclusions, whatever those conclusions may be. If I may borrow a
+phrase paraded at the Church Congress, I think it &quot;ought to be
+unpleasant&quot; for any man of science to find himself in the position of
+such a teacher.</p>
+
+<p>Human nature is not altered by seating it in a professorial chair,
+even of theology. I have very little doubt that if, in the year 1859,
+the tenure of my office had depended upon my adherence to the
+doctrines of Cuvier, the objections to them set forth in the &quot;Origin
+of Species&quot; would have had a halo of gravity about them that, being
+free to teach what I pleased, I failed to discover. And, in making
+that statement, it does not appear to me that I am confessing that I
+should have been debarred by &quot;selfish interests&quot; from making candid
+inquiry, or that I should have been biassed by &quot;sordid motives.&quot; I
+hope that even such a fragment of moral sense as may remain in an
+ecclesiastical &quot;infidel&quot; might have got me through the difficulty; but
+it would be unworthy to deny, or disguise, the fact that a very
+serious difficulty must have been created for me by the nature of my
+tenure. And let it be observed that the temptation, in my case, would
+have been far slighter than in that of a professor of theology;
+<!-- Page 399 -->whatever biological doctrine I had repudiated, nobody I cared for
+would have thought the worse of me for so doing. No scientific
+journals would have howled me down, as the religious newspapers howled
+down my too honest friend, the late Bishop of Natal; nor would my
+colleagues of the Royal Society have turned their backs upon me, as
+his episcopal colleagues boycotted him.</p>
+
+<p>I say these facts are obvious, and that it is wholesome and needful
+that they should be stated. It is in the interests of theology, if it
+be a science, and it is in the interests of those teachers of theology
+who desire to be something better than counsel for creeds, that it
+should be taken to heart. The seeker after theological truth and that
+only, will no more suppose that I have insulted him, than the prisoner
+who works in fetters will try to pick a quarrel with me, if I suggest
+that he would get on better if the fetters were knocked off: unless
+indeed, as it is said does happen in the course of long captivities,
+that the victim at length ceases to feel the weight of his chains, or
+even takes to hugging them, as if they were honourable ornaments.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100" ></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> The substance of a paragraph which precedes this has
+been transferred to the Prologue.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> I confess that, long ago, I once or twice made this
+mistake; even to the waste of a capital 'U.' 1893.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> &quot;Let us maintain, before we have proved. This seeming
+paradox is the secret of happiness&quot; (Dr. Newman: Tract 85, p. 85).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Dr. Newman, <i>Essay on Development</i>, p. 357.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> It is by no means to be assumed that &quot;spiritual&quot; and
+&quot;corporeal&quot; are exact equivalents of &quot;immaterial&quot; and &quot;material&quot; in
+the minds of ancient speculators on these topics. The &quot;spiritual body&quot;
+of the risen dead (1 Cor. xv.) is not the &quot;natural&quot; &quot;flesh and blood&quot;
+body. Paul does not teach the resurrection of the body in the ordinary
+sense of the word &quot;body&quot;; a fact, often overlooked, but pregnant with
+many consequences.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Tertullian (<i>Apolog. Adv. Gentes</i>, cap. xxiii) thus
+challenges the Roman authorities: let them bring a possessed person
+into the presence of a Christian before their tribunal, and if the
+demon does not confess himself to be such, on the order of the
+Christian, let the Christian be executed out of hand.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> See the expression of orthodox opinion upon the
+&quot;accommodation&quot; subterfuge already cited above, p. 217.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> I quote the first edition (1843). A second edition
+appeared in 1870. Tract 85 of the <i>Tracts for the Times</i> should be
+read with this <i>Essay</i>. If I were called upon to compile a Primer of
+&quot;Infidelity,&quot; I think I should save myself trouble by making a
+selection from these works, and from the <i>Essay on Development</i> by the
+same author.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> Yet, when it suits his purpose, as in the Introduction
+to the <i>Essay on Development</i>, Dr. Newman can demand strict evidence
+in religious questions as sharply as any &quot;infidel author;&quot; and he can
+even profess to yield to its force (<i>Essay on Miracles</i>, 1870; note,
+p. 391).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Compare Tract 85, p. 110; &quot;I am persuaded that were men
+but consistent who oppose the Church doctrines as being unscriptural,
+they would vindicate the Jews for rejecting the Gospel.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> According to Dr. Newman, &quot;This prayer [that of Bishop
+Alexander, who begged God to 'take Arius away'] is said to have been
+offered about 3 P.M. on the Saturday; that same evening Arius was in
+the great square of Constantine, when he was suddenly seized with
+indisposition&quot; (p. clxx). The &quot;infidel&quot; Gibbon seems to have dared to
+suggest that &quot;an option between poison and miracle&quot; is presented by
+this case; and it must be admitted, that, if the Bishop had been
+within the reach of a modern police magistrate, things might have gone
+hardly with him. Modern &quot;Infidels,&quot; possessed of a slight knowledge of
+chemistry, are not unlikely, with no less audacity, to suggest an
+&quot;option between fire-damp and miracle&quot; in seeking for the cause of the
+fiery outburst at Jerusalem.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> A writer in a spiritualist journal takes me roundly to
+task for venturing to doubt the historical and literal truth of the
+Gadarene story. The following passage in his letter is worth
+quotation: &quot;Now to the materialistic and scientific mind, to the
+uninitiated in spiritual verities, certainly this story of the
+Gadarene or Gergesene swine presents insurmountable difficulties; it
+seems grotesque and nonsensical. To the experienced, trained, and
+cultivated Spiritualist this miracle is, as I am prepared to show, one
+of the most instructive, the most profoundly useful, and the most
+beneficent which Jesus ever wrought in the whole course of His
+pilgrimage of redemption on earth.&quot; Just so. And the first page of
+this same journal presents the following advertisement, among others
+of the same kidney:
+</p><p>
+&quot;To WEALTHY SPIRITUALISTS&mdash;A Lady Medium of tried power wishes to meet
+with an elderly gentleman who would be willing to give her a
+comfortable home and maintenance in Exchange for her Spiritualistic
+services, as her guides consider her health is too delicate for public
+sittings: London preferred.&mdash;Address 'Mary,' Office of <i>Light</i>.&quot;
+</p><p>
+Are we going back to the days of the Judges, when wealthy Micah set up
+his private ephod, teraphim, and Levite?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> Consider Tertullian's &quot;sister&quot; (&quot;hodie apud nos&quot;), who
+conversed with angels, saw and heard mysteries, knew men's thoughts,
+and prescribed medicine for their bodies (<i>De Anima</i>, cap. 9).
+Tertullian tells us that this woman saw the soul as corporeal, and
+described its colour and shape. The &quot;infidel&quot; will probably be unable
+to refrain from insulting the memory of the ecstatic saint by the
+remark, that Tertullian's known views about the corporeality of the
+soul may have had something to do with the remarkable perceptive
+powers of the Montanist medium, in whose revelations of the spiritual
+world he took such profound interest.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> See the New York <i>World</i> for Sunday, 21st October, 1888;
+and the <i>Report of the Seybert Commission</i>, Philadelphia, 1887.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Dr. Newman's observation that the miraculous
+multiplication of the pieces of the true cross (with which &quot;the whole
+world is filled,&quot; according to Cyril of Jerusalem; and of which some
+say there are enough extant to build a man-of-war) is no more
+wonderful than that of the loaves and fishes, is one that I do not see
+my way to contradict. See <i>Essay on Miracles</i>. 2d ed. p. 163.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> <i>An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine</i>, by
+J.H. Newman, D.D., pp. 7 and 8. (1878.)</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Dr. Newman faces this question with his customary
+ability. &quot;Now, I own, I am not at all solicitous to deny that this
+doctrine of an apostate Angel and his hosts was gained from Babylon:
+it might still be Divine nevertheless. God who made the prophet's ass
+speak, and thereby instructed the prophet, might instruct His Church
+by means of heathen Babylon&quot; (Tract 85, p. 83). There seems to be no
+end to the apologetic burden that Balaam's ass may carry.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, May 1889 (p. 701).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> I trust it may not be supposed that I undervalue M.
+Renan's labours, or intended to speak slightingly of them.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> To-day's <i>Times</i> contains a report of a remarkable
+speech by Prince Bismarck, in which he tells the Reichstag that he has
+long given up investing in foreign stock, lest so doing should mislead
+his judgment in his transactions with foreign states. Does this
+declaration prove that the Chancellor accuses himself of being
+&quot;sordid&quot; and &quot;selfish&quot;; or does it not rather show that, even in
+dealing with himself, he remains the man of realities?</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="X" id="X" ></a><!-- Page 400 -->X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE</h3>
+
+<h4>[1890]</h4>
+
+
+<p>I had fondly hoped that Mr. Gladstone and I had come to an end of
+disputation, and that the hatchet of war was finally superseded by the
+calumet, which, as Mr. Gladstone, I believe, objects to tobacco, I was
+quite willing to smoke for both. But I have had, once again, to
+discover that the adage that whoso seeks peace will ensue it, is a
+somewhat hasty generalisation. The renowned warrior with whom it is my
+misfortune to be opposed in most things has dug up the axe and is on
+the war-path once more. The weapon has been wielded with all the
+dexterity which long practice has conferred on a past master in craft,
+whether of wood or state. And I have reason to believe that the
+simpler sort of the great tribe which he heads, imagine that my scalp
+is already on its way to adorn their big chief's wigwam. I am glad
+therefore to be able to <!-- Page 401 -->relieve any anxieties which my friends may
+entertain without delay. I assure them that my skull retains its
+normal covering, and that though, naturally, I may have felt alarmed,
+nothing serious has happened. My doughty adversary has merely
+performed a war dance, and his blows have for the most part cut the
+air. I regret to add, however, that by misadventure, and I am afraid I
+must say carelessness, he has inflicted one or two severe contusions
+on himself.</p>
+
+<p>When the noise of approaching battle roused me from the dreams of
+peace which occupy my retirement, I was glad to observe (since I must
+fight) that the campaign was to be opened upon a new field. When the
+contest raged over the Pentateuchal myth of the creation, Mr.
+Gladstone's manifest want of acquaintance with the facts and
+principles involved in the discussion, no less than with the best
+literature on his own side of the subject, gave me the uncomfortable
+feeling that I had my adversary at a disadvantage. The sun of science,
+at my back, was in his eyes. But, on the present occasion, we are
+happily on an equality. History and Biblical criticism are as much, or
+as little, my vocation as they are that of Mr. Gladstone; the blinding
+from too much light, or the blindness from too little, may be presumed
+to be equally shared by both of us.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone takes up his new position in the country of the
+Gadarenes. His strategic sense <!-- Page 402 -->justly leads him to see that the
+authority of the teachings of the synoptic Gospels, touching the
+nature of the spiritual world, turns upon the acceptance, or the
+rejection, of the Gadarene and other like stories. As we accept, or
+repudiate, such histories as that of the possessed pigs, so shall we
+accept, or reject, the witness of the synoptics to such miraculous
+interventions.</p>
+
+<p>It is exactly because these stories constitute the key-stone of the
+orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite
+of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for
+compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be
+thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware
+that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated
+as the &quot;Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture&quot;; and who may possibly, in
+their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully set forth in that
+work. But the warmest admirers of Mr. Gladstone will hardly be
+prepared to maintain that mathematical accuracy in stating the
+opinions of an opponent is the most prominent feature of his
+controversial method. And what follows will show that, in the present
+case, the desire to be fair and accurate, the existence of which I am
+bound to assume, has not borne as much fruit as might have been
+expected.</p>
+
+<p>In referring to the statement of the narrators, <!-- Page 403 -->that the herd of
+swine perished in consequence of the entrance into them of the demons
+by the permission, or order, of Jesus of Nazareth, I said:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the
+wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
+evil example&quot; (&quot;Nineteenth Century,&quot; February, 1889, p. 172).</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone has not found it convenient to cite this passage; and,
+in view of various considerations, I dare not assume that he would
+assent to it, without sundry subtle modifications which, for me, might
+possibly rob it of its argumentative value. But, until the proposition
+is seriously controverted, I shall assume it to be true, and content
+myself with warning the reader that neither he nor I have any grounds
+for assuming Mr. Gladstone's concurrence. With this caution, I proceed
+to remark that I think it may be granted that the people whose herd of
+2000 swine (more or fewer) was suddenly destroyed suffered great loss
+and damage. And it is quite certain that the narrators of the Gadarene
+story do not, in any way, refer to the point of morality and legality
+thus raised; as I said, they show no inkling of the moral and legal
+difficulties which arise.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the facts of the case, I submit that for those who admit
+the principle laid down, the conclusion which I have drawn necessarily
+follows; <!-- Page 404 -->though I repeat that, since Mr. Gladstone does not
+explicitly admit the principle, I am far from suggesting that he is
+bound by its logical consequences. However, I distinctly reiterate the
+opinion that any one who acted in the way described in the story
+would, in my judgment, be guilty of &quot;a misdemeanour of evil example.&quot;
+About that point I desire to leave no ambiguity whatever; and it
+follows that, if I believed the story, I should have no hesitation in
+applying this judgment to the chief actor in it.</p>
+
+<p>But, if any one will do me the favour to turn to the paper in which
+these passages occur, he will find that a considerable part of it is
+devoted to the exposure of the familiar trick of the &quot;counsel for
+creeds,&quot; who, when they wish to profit by the easily stirred <i>odium
+theologicum</i>, are careful to confuse disbelief in a narrative of a
+man's act, or disapproval of the acts as narrated, with disbelieving
+and vilipending the man himself. If I say that &quot;according to
+paragraphs in several newspapers, my valued Separatist friend A.B. has
+houghed a lot of cattle, which he considered to be unlawfully in the
+possession of an Irish land-grabber; that, in my opinion, any such act
+is a misdemeanour of evil example; but, that I utterly disbelieve the
+whole story and have no doubt that it is a mere fabrication:&quot; it
+really appears to me that, if any one charges me with calling A.B. an
+immoral misdemeanant I should <!-- Page 405 -->be justified in using very strong
+language respecting either his sanity or his veracity. And, if an
+analogous charge has been brought in reference to the Gadarene story,
+there is certainly no excuse producible, on account of any lack of
+plain speech on my part. Surely no language can be more explicit than
+that which follows:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can discern no escape from this dilemma; either Jesus said what he
+is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former case, it is
+inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the 'unseen
+world' should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon
+the authority of the synoptic Gospels&quot; (p. 173). &quot;The choice then lies
+between discrediting those who compiled the Gospel biographies and
+disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple souls, thought to honour by
+preserving such traditions of the exercise of his authority over
+Satan's invisible world&quot; (p. 174). And I leave no shadow of doubt as
+to my own choice: &quot;After what has been said, I do not think that any
+sensible man, unless he happen to be angry, will accuse me of
+'contradicting the Lord and his Apostles' if I reiterate my total
+disbelief in the whole Gadarene story&quot; (p. 178).</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone must have been exceedingly
+angry when he committed himself to such a statement as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>So, then, after eighteen centuries of worship offered to our
+     Lord by the most cultivated, the most developed, and <!-- Page 406 -->the
+     most progressive portion of the human race, it has been
+     reserved to a scientific inquirer to discover that He was no
+     better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer.... How, in such
+     a matter, came the honours of originality to be reserved to
+     our time and to Professor Huxley? (Pp. 269, 270.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Truly, the hatchet is hardly a weapon of precision, but would seem to
+have rather more the character of the boomerang, which returns to
+damage the reckless thrower. Doubtless such incidents are somewhat
+ludicrous. But they have a very serious side; and, if I rated the
+opinion of those who blindly follow Mr. Gladstone's leading, but not
+light, in these matters, much higher than the great Duke of
+Wellington's famous standard of minimum value, I think I might fairly
+beg them to reflect upon the general bearings of this particular
+example of his controversial method. I imagine it can hardly commend
+itself to their cool judgment.</p>
+
+<p>After this tragi-comical ending to what an old historian calls a
+&quot;robustious and rough coming on&quot;; and after some praises of the
+provisions of the Mosaic law in the matter of not eating pork&mdash;in
+which, as pork disagrees with me and for some other reasons, I am much
+disposed to concur, though I do not see what they have to do with the
+matter in hand&mdash;comes the serious onslaught.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Mr. Huxley, exercising his rapid judgment on the text, does
+     not appear to have encumbered himself with the labour of
+     inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it.<!-- Page 407 --> He
+     has thus missed a point which might have been set up in
+     support of his accusation against our Lord. (P. 273.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Unhappily for my conduct, I have been much exercised in controversy
+during the past thirty years; and the only compensation for the loss
+of time and the trials of temper which it has inflicted upon me, is
+that I have come to regard it as a branch of the fine arts, and to
+take an impartial and &aelig;sthetic interest in the way in which it is
+conducted, even by those whose efforts are directed against myself.
+Now, from the purely artistic point of view (which, as we are all
+being told, has nothing to do with morals), I consider it an axiom,
+that one should never appear to doubt that the other side has
+performed the elementary duty of acquiring proper elementary
+information, unless there is demonstrative evidence to the contrary.
+And I think, though I admit that this may be a purely subjective
+appreciation, that (unless you are quite certain) there is a &quot;want of
+finish,&quot; as a great master of disputation once put it, about the
+suggestion that your opponent has missed a point on his own side.
+Because it may happen that he has not missed it at all, but only
+thought it unworthy of serious notice. And if he proves that, the
+suggestion looks foolish.</p>
+
+<p>Merely noting the careful repetition of a charge, the absurdity of
+which has been sufficiently exposed above, I now ask my readers to
+accompany me on a little voyage of discovery in <!-- Page 408 -->search of the side on
+which the rapid judgment and the ignorance of the literature of the
+subject lie. I think I may promise them very little trouble, and a
+good deal of entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone is of opinion that the Gadarene swinefolk were &quot;Hebrews
+bound by the Mosaic law&quot; (p. 274); and he conceives that it has not
+occurred to me to learn what may be said in favour of and against this
+view. He tells us that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for
+     stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of
+     Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine
+     was innocent and lawful. (P. 273.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone then goes on to inform his readers that in his
+painstaking search after truth he has submitted to the labour of
+personally examining the writings of Josephus. Moreover, in a note, he
+positively exhibits an acquaintance, in addition, with the works of
+Bishop Wordsworth and of Archbishop Trench; and even shows that he has
+read Hudson's commentary on Josephus. And yet people say that our
+Biblical critics do not equal the Germans in research! But Mr.
+Gladstone's citation of Cuvier and Sir John Herschel about the
+Creation myth, and his ignorance of all the best modern writings on
+his own side, produced a great impression on my mind. I have had the
+audacity to suspect that his acquaintance with what has been done in
+Biblical history <!-- Page 409 -->might stand at no higher level than his information
+about the natural sciences. However unwillingly, I have felt bound to
+consider the possibility that Mr. Gladstone's labours in this matter
+may have carried him no further than Josephus and the worthy, but
+somewhat antique, episcopal and other authorities to whom he refers;
+that even his reading of Josephus may have been of the most cursory
+nature, directed not to the understanding of his author, but to the
+discovery of useful controversial matter; and that, in view of the not
+inconsiderable misrepresentation of my statements to which I have
+drawn attention, it might be that Mr. Gladstone's exposition of the
+evidence of Josephus was not more trustworthy. I proceed to show that
+my previsions have been fully justified. I doubt if controversial
+literature contains anything more <i>piquant</i> than the story I have to
+unfold.</p>
+
+<p>That I should be reproved for rapidity of judgment is very just;
+however quaint the situation of Mr. Gladstone, as the reprover, may
+seem to people blessed with a sense of humour. But it is a quality,
+the defects of which have been painfully obvious to me all my life;
+and I try to keep my Pegasus&mdash;at best, a poor Shetland variety of that
+species of quadruped&mdash;at a respectable jog-trot, by loading him
+heavily with bales of reading. Those who took the trouble to study my
+paper in good faith and not for mere controversial purposes, <!-- Page 410 -->have a
+right to know, that something more than a hasty glimpse of two or
+three passages of Josephus (even with as many episcopal works thrown
+in) lay at the back of the few paragraphs I devoted to the Gadarene
+story. I proceed to set forth, as briefly as I can, some results of
+that preparatory work. My artistic principles do not permit me, at
+present, to express a doubt that Mr. Gladstone was acquainted with the
+facts I am about to mention when he undertook to write. But, if he did
+know them, then both what he has said and what he has not said, his
+assertions and his omissions alike, will require a paragraph to
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The common consent of the synoptic Gospels affirms that the miraculous
+transference of devils from a man, or men, to sundry pigs, took place
+somewhere on the eastern shore of the Lake of Tiberias; &quot;on the other
+side of the sea over against Galilee,&quot; the western shore being,
+without doubt, included in the latter province. But there is no such
+concord when we come to the name of the part of the eastern shore, on
+which, according to the story, Jesus and his disciples landed. In the
+revised version, Matthew calls it the &quot;country of the Gadarenes:&quot; Luke
+and Mark have &quot;Gerasenes.&quot; In sundry very ancient manuscripts
+&quot;Gergesenes&quot; occurs.</p>
+
+<p>The existence of any place called Gergesa, however, is declared by the
+weightiest authorities <!-- Page 411 -->whom I have consulted to be very questionable;
+and no such town is mentioned in the list of the cities of the
+Decapolis, in the territory of which (as it would seem from Mark v.
+20) the transaction was supposed to take place. About Gerasa, on the
+other hand, there hangs no such doubt. It was a large and important
+member of the group of the Decapolitan cities. But Gerasa is more than
+thirty miles distant from the nearest part of the Lake of Tiberias,
+while the city mentioned in the narrative could not have been very far
+off the scene of the event. However, as Gerasa was a very important
+Hellenic city, not much more than a score of miles from Gadara, it is
+easily imaginable that a locality which was part of Decapolitan
+territory may have been spoken of as belonging to one of the two
+cities, when it really appertained to the other. After weighing all
+the arguments, no doubt remains on my mind that &quot;Gadarene&quot; is the
+proper reading. At the period under consideration, Gadara appears to
+have been a good-sized fortified town, about two miles in
+circumference. It was a place of considerable strategic importance,
+inasmuch as it lay on a high ridge at the point of intersection of the
+roads from Tiberias, Scythopolis, Damascus, and Gerasa. Three miles
+north from it, where the Tiberias road descended into the valley of
+the Hieromices, lay the famous hot springs and the fashionable baths
+of Amatha. On the north-east side, the remains of <!-- Page 412 -->the extensive
+necropolis of Gadara are still to be seen. Innumerable sepulchral
+chambers are excavated in the limestone cliffs, and many of them still
+contain sarcophaguses of basalt; while not a few are converted into
+dwellings by the inhabitants of the present village of Um Keis. The
+distance of Gadara from the south-eastern shore of the Lake of
+Tiberias is less than seven miles. The nearest of the other cities of
+the Decapolis, to the north, is Hippos, which also lay some seven
+miles off, in the south-eastern corner of the shore of the lake. In
+accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice, that each city should
+be surrounded by a certain amount of territory amenable to its
+jurisdiction,<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101" ></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> and on other grounds, it may be taken for certain
+that the intermediate country was divided between Gadara and Hippos;
+and that the citizens of Gadara had free access to a port on the lake.
+Hence the title of &quot;country of the Gadarenes&quot; applied to the locality
+of the porcine catastrophe becomes easily intelligible. The swine may
+well be imagined to have been feeding (as they do now in the adjacent
+region) on the hillsides, which slope somewhat steeply down to the
+lake from the northern boundary wall of the valley of the Hieromices
+(<i>Nahr Yarmuk</i>), about half-way <!-- Page 413 -->between the city and the shore, and
+doubtless lay well within the territory of the <i>polis</i> of Gadara.</p>
+
+<p>The proof that Gadara was, to all intents and purposes, a Gentile, and
+not a Jewish, city is complete. The date and the occasion of its
+foundation are unknown; but it certainly existed in the third century
+B.C. Antiochus the Great annexed it to his dominions in B.C. 198.
+After this, during the brief revival of Jewish autonomy, Alexander
+Jann&aelig;us took it; and for the first time, so far as the records go, it
+fell under Jewish rule.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102" ></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> From this it was rescued by Pompey (B.C.
+63), who rebuilt the city and incorporated it with the province of
+Syria. In gratitude to the Romans for the dissolution of a hated
+union, the Gadarenes adopted the Pompeian era of their coinage. Gadara
+was a commercial centre of some importance, and therefore, it may be
+assumed, Jews settled in it, as they settled in almost all
+considerable Gentile cities. But a wholly mistaken estimate of the
+magnitude of the Jewish colony has been based upon the notion that
+Gabinius, proconsul of Syria in 57-55 B.C., seated one of the five
+sanhedrins in Gadara. Sch&uuml;rer has pointed out that what he really did
+was to lodge one of them in Gadara, far away on the other side of the
+Jordan. This is one of the many errors which have arisen out of the
+confusion of the names Ga<i>d</i>ara, Ga<i>z</i>ara, and Ga<i>b</i>ara.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 414 -->Augustus made a present of Gadara to Herod the Great, as an appanage
+personal to himself; and, upon Herod's death, recognising it to be a
+&quot;Grecian city&quot; like Hippos and Gaza,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103" ></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> he transferred it back to
+its former place in the province of Syria. That Herod made no effort
+to judaise his temporary possession, but rather the contrary, is
+obvious from the fact that the coins of Gadara, while under his rule,
+bear the image of Augustus with the superscription
+<ins title="Transliteration: Sebastos">&#931;&#949;&#946;&#945;&#963;&#964;&#8057;&#962;</ins>&mdash;a
+flying in the face of Jewish prejudices which, even he,
+did not dare to venture upon in Jud&aelig;a. And I may remark that, if my
+co-trustee of the British Museum had taken the trouble to visit the
+splendid numismatic collection under our charge, he might have seen
+two coins of Gadara, one of the time of Tiberius and the other of that
+of Titus, each bearing the effigies of the emperor on the obverse:
+while the personified genius of the city is on the reverse of the
+former. Further, the well-known works of De Saulcy and of Ekhel would
+have supplied the information that, from the time of Augustus to that
+of Gordian, the Gadarene coinage had the same thoroughly Gentile
+character. Curious that a city of &quot;Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law&quot;
+should tolerate such a mint!</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 415 -->Whatever increase in population the Ghetto of Gadara may have
+undergone, between B.C. 4 and A.D. 66, it nowise affected the gentile
+and anti-judaic character of the city at the outbreak of the great
+war; for Josephus tells us that, immediately after the great massacre
+of C&aelig;sarea, the revolted Jews &quot;laid waste the villages of the Syrians
+and their neighbouring cities, Philadelphia and Sebonitis and Gerasa
+and Pella and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara and Hippos&quot; (&quot;Wars,&quot;
+II. xviii. 1). I submit that, if Gadara had been a city of &quot;Hebrews
+bound by the Mosaic law,&quot; the ravaging of their territory by their
+brother Jews, in revenge for the massacre of the C&aelig;sarean Jews by the
+Gentile population of that place, would surely have been a somewhat
+unaccountable proceeding. But when we proceed a little further, to the
+fifth section of the chapter in which this statement occurs, the whole
+affair becomes intelligible enough.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up
+     against the Jews that were among them: those of Askelon slew
+     two thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two
+     thousand, and put not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also
+     put a great number to death, but kept a great number in
+     prison; moreover, those of Hippos and those of Gadara did
+     the like, while they put to death the boldest of the Jews,
+     but kept those of whom they were most afraid in custody; as
+     did the rest of the cities of Syria according as they every
+     one either hated them or were afraid of them.</p></div>
+
+<p>Josephus is not always trustworthy, but he has <!-- Page 416 -->no conceivable motive
+for altering facts here; he speaks of contemporary events, in which he
+himself took an active part, and he characterises the cities in the
+way familiar to him. For Josephus, Gadara is just as much a Gentile
+city as Ptolemais; it was reserved for his latest commentator, either
+ignoring, or ignorant of, all this, to tell us that Gadara had a
+Hebrew population, bound by the Mosaic law.</p>
+
+<p>In the face of all this evidence, most of which has been put before
+serious students, with full reference to the needful authorities and
+in a thoroughly judicial manner, by Sch&uuml;rer in his classical
+work,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104" ></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> one reads with stupefaction the statement which Mr.
+Gladstone has thought fit to put before the uninstructed public:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for
+     stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of
+     Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine
+     was innocent and lawful. This is not quite the place for a
+     critical examination of the matter; but I have examined it,
+     and have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no reason
+     whatever to suppose that the population of Gadara, and still
+     less (if less may be) the population of the neighbourhood,
+     and least of all the swine-herding or lower portion of that
+     population, were other than Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law.
+     (Pp. 373-4.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Even &quot;rapid judgment&quot; cannot be pleaded in excuse for this surprising
+statement, because a &quot;<!-- Page 417 -->Note on the Gadarene miracle&quot; is added (in a
+special appendix), in which the references are given to the passages
+of Josephus, by the improved interpretation of which, Mr. Gladstone
+has thus contrived to satisfy himself of the thing which is not. One
+of these is &quot;Antiquities&quot; XVII. xiii. 4, in which section, I regret to
+say, I can find no mention of Gadara. In &quot;Antiquities,&quot; XVII. xi. 4,
+however, there is a passage which would appear to be that Mr.
+Gladstone means; and I will give it in full, although I have already
+cited part of it:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>There were also certain of the cities which paid tribute to
+     Archelaus; Strato's tower, and Sebaste, with Joppa and
+     Jerusalem; for, as to Gaza, Gadara, and Hippos, they were
+     Grecian cities, which C&aelig;sar separated from his government,
+     and added them to the province of Syria.</p></div>
+
+<p>That is to say, Augustus simply restored the state of things which
+existed before he gave Gadara, then certainly a Gentile city, lying
+outside Jud&aelig;a, to Herod as a mark of great personal favour. Yet Mr.
+Gladstone can gravely tell those who are not in a position to check
+his statements:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The sense seems to be, not that these cities were inhabited
+     by a Greek population, but that they had politically been
+     taken out of Jud&aelig;a and added to Syria, which I presume was
+     classified as simply Hellenic, a portion of the great Greek
+     empire erected by Alexander. (Pp. 295-6.)</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone's next reference is to the &quot;Wars,&quot; III. vii. 1:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>So Vespasian marched to the city Gadara, and took it upon<!-- Page 418 -->
+     the first onset, because he found it destitute of a
+     considerable number of men grown up for war. He then came
+     into it, and slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy
+     on any age whatsoever; and this was done out of the hatred
+     they bore the nation, and because of the iniquity they had
+     been guilty of in the affair of Cestius.</p></div>
+
+<p>Obviously, then, Gadara was an ultra-Jewish city. Q.E.D. But a student
+trained in the use of weapons of precision, rather than in that of
+rhetorical tomahawks, has had many and painful warnings to look well
+about him, before trusting an argument to the mercies of a passage,
+the context of which he has not carefully considered. If Mr. Gladstone
+had not been too much in a hurry to turn his imaginary prize to
+account&mdash;if he had paused just to look at the preceding chapter of
+Josephus&mdash;he would have discovered that his much haste meant very
+little speed. He would have found (&quot;Wars,&quot; III. vi. 2) that Vespasian
+marched from his base, the port of Ptolemais (Acre), on the shores of
+the Mediterranean, into Galilee; and, having dealt with the so-called
+&quot;Gadara,&quot; was minded to finish with Jotapata, a strong place about
+fourteen miles south-east of Ptolemais, into which Josephus, who at
+first had fled to Tiberias, eventually threw himself&mdash;Vespasian
+arriving before Jotapata &quot;the very next day.&quot; Now, if any one will
+take a decent map of Ancient Palestine in hand, he will see that
+Jotapata, as I have said, lies about fourteen miles in a straight line
+east-south-east of Ptolemais, <!-- Page 419 -->while a certain town, &quot;Gabara&quot; (which
+was also held by the Jews), is situated, about the same distance, to
+the east of that port. Nothing can be more obvious than that
+Vespasian, wishing to advance from Ptolemais into Galilee, could not
+afford to leave these strongholds in the possession of the enemy; and,
+as Gabara would lie on his left flank when he moved to Jotapata, he
+took that city, whence his communications with his base could easily
+be threatened, first. It might really have been fair evidence of
+demoniac possession, if the best general of Rome had marched forty odd
+miles, as the crow flies, through hostile Galilee, to take a city
+(which, moreover, had just tried to abolish its Jewish population) on
+the other side of the Jordan; and then marched back again to a place
+fourteen miles off his starting-point.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105" ></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> One would think that the
+most careless of readers must be startled by this incongruity into
+inquiring whether there might not be something wrong with the text;
+and, if he had done so, he would have easily discovered that since the
+time of Reland, a century and a half ago, careful scholars have read
+Ga<i>b</i>ara for Ga<i>d</i>ara.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106" ></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 420 -->Once more, I venture to point out that training in the use of the
+weapons of precision of science may have its value in historical
+studies, if only in preventing the occurrence of droll blunders in
+geography.</p>
+
+<p>In the third citation (&quot;Wars,&quot; IV. vii.) Josephus tells us that
+Vespasian marched against &quot;Gadara,&quot; which he calls the metropolis of
+Per&aelig;a (it was possibly the seat of a common festival of the
+Decapolitan cities), and entered it, without opposition, the wealthy
+and powerful citizens having opened negotiations with him without the
+knowledge of an opposite party, who, &quot;as being inferior in number to
+their enemies, who were within the city, and seeing the Romans very
+near the city,&quot; resolved to fly. Before doing so, however, they, after
+a fashion unfortunately too common among the Zealots, murdered and
+shockingly mutilated Dolesus, a man of the first rank, who had
+promoted the embassy to Vespasian; and then &quot;ran out of the city.&quot;
+Hereupon, &quot;the people of Gadara&quot; (surely not this time &quot;Hebrews bound
+by the Mosaic law&quot;) received Vespasian with joyful acclamations,
+voluntarily pulled down their wall, so that the city could not in
+future be used as a fortress by the Jews, and accepted a Roman
+garrison for their future protection. Granting that this Gadara really
+is the city of the Gadarenes, the reference, without citation, to the
+passage, in support of Mr. Gladstone's contention <!-- Page 421 -->seems rather
+remarkable. Taken in conjunction with the shortly antecedent ravaging
+of the Gadarene territory by the Jews, in fact, better proof could
+hardly be expected of the real state of the case; namely, that the
+population of Gadara (and notably the wealthy and respectable part of
+it) was thoroughly Hellenic; though, as in C&aelig;sarea and elsewhere among
+the Palestinian cities, the rabble contained a considerable body of
+fanatical Jews, whose reckless ferocity made them, even though a mere
+minority of the population, a standing danger to the city.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Mr. Gladstone's conclusion from his study of Josephus, that the
+population of Gadara were &quot;Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law,&quot; turns out
+to depend upon nothing better than the marvellously complete
+misinterpretation of what that author says, combined with equally
+marvellous geographical misunderstandings, long since exposed and
+rectified; while the positive evidence that Gadara, like other cities
+of the Decapolis, was thoroughly Hellenic in organisation, and
+essentially Gentile in population, is overwhelming.</p>
+
+<p>And, that being the fact of the matter, patent to all who will take
+the trouble to enquire about what has been said about it, however
+obscure to those who merely talk of so doing, the thesis that the
+Gadarene swineherds, or owners, were Jews violating the Mosaic law
+shows itself to be an empty and most unfortunate guess. But really,
+<!-- Page 422 -->whether they that kept the swine were Jews, or whether they were
+Gentiles, is a consideration which has no relevance whatever to my
+case. The legal provisions, which alone had authority over an
+inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, were the Gentile laws
+sanctioned by the Roman suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the
+only law, which has authority in England, is that recognised by the
+sovereign Legislature. Jewish communities in England may have their
+private code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an English
+magistrate, if called upon to enforce their peculiar laws, would
+dismiss the complainants from the judgment seat, let us hope with more
+politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite as firmly.
+Moreover, in the matter of keeping pigs, we may be quite certain that
+Gadarene law left everybody free to do as he pleased, indeed
+encouraged the practice rather than otherwise. Not only was pork one
+of the commonest and one of the most favourite articles of Roman diet;
+but, to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a sacrificial animal of
+high importance. Sucking pigs played an important part in Hellenic
+purificatory rites; and everybody knows the significance of the Roman
+suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas-reliefs.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, only the extreme need of a despairing
+&quot;reconciler&quot; drowning in a sea of adverse facts, can explain the
+catching at <!-- Page 423 -->such a poor straw as the reckless guess that the
+swineherds of the &quot;country of the Gadarenes&quot; were erring Jews, doing a
+little clandestine business on their own account. The endeavour to
+justify the asserted destruction of the swine by the analogy of
+breaking open a cask of smuggled spirits, and wasting their contents
+on the ground, is curiously unfortunate. Does Mr. Gladstone mean to
+suggest that a Frenchman landing at Dover, and coming upon a cask of
+smuggled brandy in the course of a stroll along the cliffs, has the
+right to break it open and waste its contents on the ground? Yet the
+party of Galileans who, according to the narrative, landed and took a
+walk on the Gadarene territory, were as much foreigners in the
+Decapolis as Frenchmen would be at Dover. Herod Antipas, their
+sovereign, had no jurisdiction in the Decapolis&mdash;they were strangers
+and aliens, with no more right to interfere with a pig-keeping Hebrew,
+than I have a right to interfere with an English professor of the
+Israelitic faith, if I see a slice of ham on his plate. According to
+the law of the country in which these Galilean foreigners found
+themselves, men might keep pigs if they pleased. If the men who kept
+them were Jews, it might be permissible for the strangers to inform
+the religious authority acknowledged by the Jews of Gadara; but to
+interfere themselves, in such a matter, was a step devoid of either
+moral or legal justification.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 424 -->Suppose a modern English Sabbatarian fanatic, who believes, on the
+strength of his interpretation of the fourth commandment, that it is a
+deadly sin to work on the &quot;Lord's Day,&quot; sees a fellow Puritan yielding
+to the temptation of getting in his harvest on a fine Sunday
+morning&mdash;is the former justified in setting fire to the latter's corn?
+Would not an English court of justice speedily teach him better?</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the government which permits private persons, on any pretext
+(especially pious and patriotic pretexts), to take the law into their
+own hands, fails in the performance of the primary duties of all
+governments; while those who set the example of such acts, or who
+approve them, or who fail to disapprove them, are doing their best to
+dissolve civil society; they are compassers of illegality and fautors
+of immorality.</p>
+
+<p>I fully understand that Mr. Gladstone may not see the matter in this
+light. He may possibly consider that the union of Gadara with the
+Decapolis, by Augustus, was a &quot;blackguard&quot; transaction, which deprived
+Hellenic Gadarene law of all moral force; and that it was quite proper
+for a Jewish Galilean, going back to the time when the land of the
+Girgashites was given to his ancestors, some 1500 years before, to
+act, as if the state of things which ought to obtain, in territory
+which traditionally, at any rate, belonged to his forefathers, did
+really exist. And, that being so, I <!-- Page 425 -->can only say I do not agree with
+him, but leave the matter to the appreciation of those of our
+countrymen, happily not yet the minority, who believe that the first
+condition of enduring liberty is obedience to the law of the land.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The end of the month drawing nigh, I thought it well to send away the
+manuscript of the foregoing pages yesterday, leaving open, in my own
+mind, the possibility of adding a succinct characterisation of Mr.
+Gladstone's controversial methods as illustrated therein. This
+morning, however, I had the pleasure of reading a speech which I think
+must satisfy the requirements of the most fastidious of controversial
+artists; and there occurs in it so concise, yet so complete, a
+delineation of Mr. Gladstone's way of dealing with disputed questions
+of another kind, that no poor effort of mine could better it as a
+description of the aspect which his treatment of scientific,
+historical, and critical questions presents to me.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The smallest examination would have told a man of his
+     capacity and of his experience that he was uttering the
+     grossest exaggerations, that he was basing arguments upon
+     the slightest hypotheses, and that his discussions only had
+     to be critically examined by the most careless critic in
+     order to show their intrinsic hollowness.</p></div>
+
+<p>Those who have followed me through this paper will hardly dispute the
+justice of this judgment, severe as it is. But the Chief Secretary
+for<!-- Page 426 --> Ireland has science in the blood; and has the advantage of a
+natural, as well as a highly cultivated, aptitude for the use of
+methods of precision in investigation, and for the exact enunciation
+of the results thereby obtained.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Thus Josephus (lib. ix.) says that his rival, Justus,
+persuaded the citizens of Tiberias to &quot;set the villages that belonged
+to Gadara and Hippos on fire; which villages were situated on the
+borders of Tiberias and of the region of Scythopolis.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> It is said to have been destroyed by its captors.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> &quot;But as to the Grecian cities, Gaza and Gadara and
+Hippos, he cut them off from the kingdom and added them to
+Syria.&quot;&mdash;Josephus, <i>Wars</i>, II. vi. 3. See also <i>Antiquities</i>, XVII.
+xi. 4.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> <i>Geschichte des j&uuml;dischen Volkes im Zeitalter Christi</i>,
+1886-90.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> If William the Conqueror, after fighting the battle of
+Hastings, had marched to capture Chichester and then returned to
+assault Rye, being all the while anxious to reach London, his
+proceedings would not have been more eccentric than Mr. Gladstone must
+imagine those of Vespasian were.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> See Reland, <i>Palestina</i> (1714), t. ii. p. 771. Also
+Robinson, <i>Later Biblical Researches</i> (1856), p. 87 <i>note</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI" ></a><!-- Page 427 -->XI</h2>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS</h3>
+
+<h4>[1891]</h4>
+
+
+<p>The series of essays, in defence of the historical accuracy of the
+Jewish and Christian Scriptures, contributed by Mr. Gladstone to &quot;Good
+Words,&quot; having been revised and enlarged by their author, appeared
+last year as a separate volume, under the somewhat defiant title of
+&quot;The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The last of these Essays, entitled &quot;Conclusion,&quot; contains an attack,
+or rather several attacks, couched in language which certainly does
+not err upon the side of moderation or of courtesy, upon statements
+and opinions of mine. One of these assaults is a deliberately devised
+attempt, not merely to rouse the theological prejudices ingrained in
+the majority of Mr. Gladstone's readers, but to hold me up as a person
+who has endeavoured to besmirch the personal character of the object
+of their veneration. For Mr. Gladstone asserts <!-- Page 428 -->that I have undertaken
+to try &quot;the character of our Lord&quot; (p. 268); and he tells the many who
+are, as I think unfortunately, predisposed to place implicit credit in
+his assertions, that it has been reserved for me to discover that
+Jesus &quot;was no better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer!&quot; (p. 269).</p>
+
+<p>It was extremely easy for me to prove, as I did in the pages of this
+Review last December, that, under the most favourable interpretation,
+this amazing declaration must be ascribed to extreme confusion of
+thought. And, by bringing an abundance of good-will to the
+consideration of the subject, I have now convinced myself that it is
+right for me to admit that a person of Mr. Gladstone's intellectual
+acuteness really did mistake the reprobation of the course of conduct
+ascribed to Jesus, in a story of which I expressly say I do not
+believe a word, for an attack on his character and a declaration that
+he was &quot;no better than a law-breaker, and an evil-doer.&quot; At any rate,
+so far as I can see, this is what Mr. Gladstone wished to be believed
+when he wrote the following passage:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I must, however, in passing, make the confession that I did
+     not state with accuracy, as I ought to have done, the
+     precise form of the accusation. I treated it as an
+     imputation on the action of our Lord; he replies that it is
+     only an imputation on the narrative of three evangelists
+     respecting Him. The difference, from his point of view, is
+     <!-- Page 429 -->probably material, and I therefore regret that I overlooked
+     it.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107" ></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Considering the gravity of the error which is here admitted, the
+fashion of the withdrawal appears more singular than admirable. From
+my &quot;point of view&quot;&mdash;not from Mr. Gladstone's apparently&mdash;the little
+discrepancy between the facts and Mr. Gladstone's carefully offensive
+travesty of them is &quot;probably&quot; (only &quot;probably&quot;) material. However, as
+Mr. Gladstone concludes with an official expression of regret for his
+error, it is my business to return an equally official expression of
+gratitude for the attenuated reparation with which I am favoured.</p>
+
+<p>Having cleared this specimen of Mr. Gladstone's controversial method
+out of the way, I may proceed to the next assault, that on a passage
+in an article on Agnosticism (&quot;Nineteenth Century,&quot; February 1889),
+published two years ago. I there said, in referring to the Gadarene
+story, &quot;Everything I know of law and justice convinces me that the
+wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
+evil example.&quot; On this, Mr. Gladstone, continuing his candid and
+urbane observations, remarks (&quot;Impregnable Rock,&quot; p. 273) that,
+&quot;Exercising his rapid judgment on the text,&quot; and &quot;not inquiring what
+anybody else had known or said about it,&quot; I had missed a point in
+support of that &quot;accusation <!-- Page 430 -->against our Lord&quot; which he has now been
+constrained to admit I never made.</p>
+
+<p>The &quot;point&quot; in question is that &quot;Gadara was a city of Greeks rather
+than of Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine was
+innocent and lawful.&quot; I conceive that I have abundantly proved that
+Gadara answered exactly to the description here given of it; and I
+shall show, by and by, that Mr. Gladstone has used language which, to
+my mind, involves the admission that the authorities of the city were
+not Jews. But I have also taken a good deal of pains to show that the
+question thus raised is of no importance in relation to the main
+issue.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108" ></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> If Gadara was, as I maintain it was, a city of the
+Decapolis, Hellenistic in constitution and containing a predominantly
+Gentile population, my case is superabundantly fortified. On the other
+hand, if the hypothesis that Gadara was under Jewish government, which
+Mr. Gladstone seems sometimes to defend and sometimes to give up,
+<!-- Page 431 -->were accepted, my case would be nowise weakened. At any rate, Gadara
+was not included within the jurisdiction of the tetrach of Galilee; if
+it had been, the Galileans who crossed over the lake to Gadara had no
+official status; and they had no more civil right to punish
+law-breakers than any other strangers.</p>
+
+<p>In my turn, however, I may remark that there is a &quot;point&quot; which
+appears to have escaped Mr. Gladstone's notice. And that is somewhat
+unfortunate, because his whole argument turns upon it. Mr. Gladstone
+assumes, as a matter of course, that pig-keeping was an offence
+against the &quot;Law of Moses&quot;; and, therefore, that Jews who kept pigs
+were as much liable to legal pains and penalties as Englishmen who
+smuggle brandy (&quot;Impregnable Rock,&quot; p. 274).</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that, according to the Law, as it is defined in
+the Pentateuch, the pig was an &quot;unclean&quot; animal, and that pork was a
+forbidden article of diet. Moreover, since pigs are hardly likely to
+be kept for the mere love of those unsavoury animals, pig-owning, or
+swine-herding, must have been, and evidently was, regarded as a
+suspicious and degrading occupation by strict Jews, in the first
+century A.D. But I should like to know on what provision of the Mosaic
+Law, as it is laid down in the Pentateuch, Mr. Gladstone bases the
+assumption, which is essential to his case, that the possession of
+pigs <!-- Page 432 -->and the calling of a swineherd were actually illegal. The
+inquiry was put to me the other day; and, as I could not answer it, I
+turned up the article &quot;Schwein&quot; in Riehm's standard &quot;Handw&ouml;rterbuch,&quot;
+for help out of my difficulty; but unfortunately without success.
+After speaking of the martyrdom which the Jews, under Antiochus
+Epiphanes, preferred to eating pork, the writer proceeds:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>It may be, nevertheless, that the practice of keeping pigs
+     may have found its way into Palestine in the Gr&aelig;co-Roman
+     time, in consequence of the great increase of the non-Jewish
+     population; yet there is no evidence of it in the New
+     Testament; the great herd of swine, 2,000 in number,
+     mentioned in the narrative of the possessed, was feeding in
+     the territory of Gadara, which belonged to the Decapolis;
+     and the prodigal son became a swineherd with the native of a
+     far country into which he had wandered; in neither of these
+     cases is there reason for thinking that the possessors of
+     these herds were Jews.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109" ></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p></div>
+
+<p>Having failed in my search, so far, I took up the next book of
+reference at hand, Kitto's &quot;Cyclop&aelig;dia&quot; (vol. iii. 1876). There, under
+&quot;Swine,&quot; the writer, Colonel Hamilton Smith, seemed at first to give
+me what I wanted, as he says that swine &quot;appear to have been
+repeatedly <!-- Page 433 -->introduced and reared by the Hebrew people,<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110" ></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a>
+notwithstanding the strong prohibition in the Law of Moses (Is. lxv.
+4).&quot; But, in the first place, Isaiah's writings form no part of the
+&quot;Law of Moses&quot;; and, in the second place, the people denounced by the
+prophet in this passage are neither the possessors of pigs, nor
+swineherds, but these &quot;which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable
+things is in their vessels.&quot; And when, in despair, I turned to the
+provisions of the Law itself, my difficulty was not cleared up.
+Leviticus xi. 8 (Revised Version) says, in reference to the pig and
+other unclean animals: &quot;Of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their
+carcasses ye shall not touch.&quot; In the revised version of Deuteronomy,
+xiv. 8, the words of the prohibition are identical, and a skilful
+refiner might possibly satisfy himself, even if he satisfied nobody
+else, that &quot;carcase&quot; means the body of a live animal as well as a dead
+one; and that, since swineherds could hardly avoid contact with their
+charges, their calling was implicitly forbidden.<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111" ></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> Unfortunately,
+the authorised version expressly says &quot;dead carcase&quot;; and thus the
+most rabbinically minded of reconcilers might find his casuistry
+foiled by that great source of surprises, the &quot;original Hebrew.&quot; That
+such <!-- Page 434 -->check is at any rate possible, is clear from the fact that the
+legal uncleanness of some animals, as food, did not interfere with
+their being lawfully possessed, cared for, and sold by Jews. The
+provisions for the ransoming of unclean beasts (Lev. xxvii. 27) and
+for the redemption of their sucklings (Numbers xviii. 15) sufficiently
+prove this. As the late Dr. Kalisch has observed in his &quot;Commentary&quot;
+on Leviticus, part ii. p. 129, note:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Though asses and horses, camels and dogs, were kept by the
+     Israelites, they were, to a certain extent, associated with
+     the notion of impurity; they might be turned to profitable
+     account by their labour or otherwise, but in respect to food
+     they were an abomination.</p></div>
+
+<p>The same learned commentator (<i>loc. cit.</i> p. 88) proves that the
+Talmudists forbade the rearing of pigs by Jews, unconditionally and
+everywhere; and even included it under the same ban as the study of
+Greek philosophy, &quot;since both alike were considered to lead to the
+desertion of the Jewish faith.&quot; It is very possible, indeed probable,
+that the Pharisees of the fourth decade of our first century took as
+strong a view of pig-keeping as did their spiritual descendants. But,
+for all that, it does not follow that the practice was illegal. The
+stricter Jews could not have despised and hated swineherds more than
+they did publicans; but, so far as I know, there is no provision in
+the Law against the practice of the calling of a tax-gatherer by a
+Jew. The publican was in fact <!-- Page 435 -->very much in the position of an Irish
+process-server at the present day&mdash;more, rather than less, despised
+and hated on account of the perfect legality of his occupation. Except
+for certain sacrificial purposes, pigs were held in such abhorrence by
+the ancient Egyptians, that swineherds were not permitted to enter a
+temple, or to intermarry with other castes; and any one who had
+touched a pig, even accidentally, was unclean. But these very
+regulations prove that pig-keeping was not illegal; it merely involved
+certain civil and religious disabilities. For the Jews, dogs were
+typically &quot;unclean animals&quot;; but when that eminently pious Hebrew,
+Tobit, &quot;went forth&quot; with the angel &quot;the young man's dog&quot; went &quot;with
+them&quot; (Tobit v. 16) without apparent remonstrance from the celestial
+guide. I really do not see how an appeal to the Law could have
+justified any one in drowning Tobit's dog, on the ground that his
+master was keeping and feeding an animal quite as &quot;unclean&quot; as any
+pig. Certainly the excellent Raguel must have failed to see the harm
+of dog-keeping, for we are told that, on the traveller's return
+homewards, &quot;the dog went after them&quot; (xi. 4).</p>
+
+<p>Until better light than I have been able to obtain is thrown upon the
+subject, therefore, it is obvious that Mr. Gladstone's argumentative
+house has been built upon an extremely slippery quick-sand; perhaps
+even has no foundation at all.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 436 -->Yet another &quot;point&quot; does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone,
+who is so much shocked that I attach no overwhelming weight to the
+assertions contained in the synoptic Gospels, even when all three
+concur. These Gospels agree in stating, in the most express, and to
+some extent verbally identical, terms, that the devils entered the
+pigs at their own request,<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112" ></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> and the third Gospel (viii. 31) tells
+us what the motive of the demons was in asking the singular boon:
+&quot;They intreated him that he would not command them to depart into the
+abyss.&quot; From this, it would seem that the devils thought to exchange
+the heavy punishment of transportation to the abyss for the lighter
+penalty of imprisonment in swine. And some commentators, more
+ingenious than respectful to the supposed chief actor in this
+extraordinary fable, have dwelt, with satisfaction, upon the very
+unpleasant quarter of an hour which the evil spirits must have had,
+when the headlong rush of their maddened tenements convinced them how
+completely they were taken in. In the whole story, there is not one
+solitary hint that the destruction of the pigs was intended as a
+punishment of their owners, or of the swineherds. On the contrary, the
+concurrent testimony <!-- Page 437 -->of the three narratives is to the effect that
+the catastrophe was the consequence of diabolic suggestion. And,
+indeed, no source could be more appropriate for an act of such
+manifest injustice and illegality.</p>
+
+<p>I can but marvel that modern defenders of the faith should not be glad
+of any reasonable excuse for getting rid of a story which, if it had
+been invented by Voltaire, would have justly let loose floods of
+orthodox indignation.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Thus, the hypothesis, to which Mr. Gladstone so fondly clings, finds
+no support in the provisions of the &quot;Law of Moses&quot; as that law is
+defined in the Pentateuch; while it is wholly inconsistent with the
+concurrent testimony of the synoptic Gospels, to which Mr. Gladstone
+attaches so much weight. In my judgment, it is directly contrary to
+everything which profane history tells us about the constitution and
+the population of the city of Gadara; and it commits those who accept
+it to a story which, if it were true, would implicate the founder of
+Christianity in an illegal and inequitable act.</p>
+
+<p>Such being the case, I consider myself excused from following Mr.
+Gladstone through all the meanderings of his late attempt to extricate
+himself from the maze of historical and exegetical difficulties in
+which he is entangled. I content myself with assuring those who, with
+my paper<!-- Page 438 --> (not Mr. Gladstone's version of my arguments) in hand,
+consult the original authorities, that they will find full
+justification for every statement I have made. But in order to dispose
+those who cannot, or will not, take that trouble, to believe that the
+proverbial blindness of one that judges his own cause plays no part in
+inducing me to speak thus decidedly, I beg their attention to the
+following examination, which shall be as brief as I can make it, of
+the seven propositions in which Mr. Gladstone professes to give a
+faithful summary of my &quot;errors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Holy See declared
+that certain propositions contained in the work of Bishop Jansen were
+heretical, the Jansenists of Port Royal replied that, while they were
+ready to defer to the Papal authority about questions of faith and
+morals, they must be permitted to judge about questions of fact for
+themselves; and that, really, the condemned propositions were not to
+be found in Jansen's writings. As everybody knows, His Holiness and
+the Grand Monarque replied to this, surely not unreasonable, plea
+after the manner of Lord Peter in the &quot;Tale of a Tub.&quot; It is,
+therefore, not without some apprehension of meeting with a similar
+fate, that I put in a like plea against Mr. Gladstone's Bull. The
+seven propositions declared to be false and condemnable, in that
+kindly and gentle way which so pleasantly <!-- Page 439 -->compares with the
+authoritative style of the Vatican (No. 5 more particularly), may or
+may not be true. But they are not to be found in anything I have
+written. And some of them diametrically contravene that which I have
+written. I proceed to prove my assertions.</p>
+
+<p>PROP. 1. <i>Throughout the paper he confounds together what I had
+distinguished, namely, the city of Gadara and the vicinage attached to
+it, not as a mere pomoerium, but as a rural district</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In my judgment, this statement is devoid of foundation. In my paper on
+&quot;The Keepers of the Herd of Swine&quot; I point out, at some length, that,
+&quot;in accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice,&quot; each city of the
+Decapolis must have been &quot;surrounded by a certain amount of territory
+amenable to its jurisdiction&quot;: and, to enforce this conclusion, I
+quote what Josephus says about the &quot;villages that belonged to Gadara
+and Hippos.&quot; As I understand the term <i>pomerium</i> or <i>pomoerium</i>,<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113" ></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a>
+it means the space which, according to Roman custom, was kept free
+from buildings, immediately within and without the walls of a city;
+and which defined the range of the <i>auspicia urbana</i>. The conception
+of a <i>pomoerium</i> as a &quot;vicinage attached to&quot; a city, appears to be
+something quite novel and original. But then, to be sure, I do not
+know <!-- Page 440 -->how many senses Mr. Gladstone may attach to the word &quot;vicinage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Whether Gadara had a <i>pomoerium</i>, in the proper technical sense, or
+not, is a point on which I offer no opinion. But that the city had a
+very considerable &quot;rural district&quot; attached to it and notwithstanding
+its distinctness, amenable to the jurisdiction of the Gentile
+municipal authorities, is one of the main points of my case.</p>
+
+<p>PROP. 2. <i>He more fatally confounds the local civil government and its
+following, including, perhaps, the whole wealthy class and those
+attached to it, with the ethnical character of a general population.</i></p>
+
+<p>Having survived confusion No. 1, which turns out not to be on my side,
+I am now confronted in No. 2 with a &quot;more fatal&quot; error&mdash;and so it is,
+if there be degrees of fatality; but, again, it is Mr. Gladstone's and
+not mine. It would appear, from this proposition (about the
+grammatical interpretation of which, however, I admit there are
+difficulties), that Mr. Gladstone holds that the &quot;local civil
+government and its following among the wealthy,&quot; were ethnically
+different from the &quot;general population.&quot; On p. 348, he further admits
+that the &quot;wealthy and the local governing power&quot; were friendly to the
+Romans. Are we then to suppose that it was the persons of Jewish
+&quot;ethnical character&quot; who favoured the Romans, while those of Gentile
+&quot;ethnical character&quot; were opposed to them? But, if that supposition is
+<!-- Page 441 -->absurd, the only alternative is that the local civil government was
+ethnically Gentile. This is exactly my contention.</p>
+
+<p>At pp. 379 to 391 of the essay on &quot;The Keepers of the Herd of Swine&quot; I
+have fully discussed the question of the ethnical character of the
+general population. I have shown that, according to Josephus, who
+surely ought to have known, Gadara was as much a Gentile city as
+Ptolemais; I have proved that he includes Gadara amongst the cities
+&quot;that rose up against the Jews that were amongst them,&quot; which is a
+pretty definite expression of his belief that the &quot;ethnical character
+of the general population&quot; was Gentile. There is no question here of
+Jews of the Roman party fighting with Jews of the Zealot party, as Mr.
+Gladstone suggests. It is the non-Jewish and anti-Jewish general
+population which rises up against the Jews who had settled &quot;among
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>PROP. 3. <i>His one item of direct evidence as to the Gentile character
+of the city refers only to the former and not to the latter</i>.</p>
+
+<p>More fatal still. But, once more, not to me. I adduce not one, but a
+variety of &quot;items&quot; in proof of the non-Judaic character of the
+population of Gadara: the evidence of history; that of the coinage of
+the city; the direct testimony of Josephus, just cited&mdash;to mention no
+others. I repeat, if the wealthy people and those connected with
+them&mdash;the &quot;classes&quot; and the &quot;hangers on&quot;<!-- Page 442 --> of Mr. Gladstone's
+well-known taxonomy&mdash;were, as he appears to admit they were, Gentiles;
+if the &quot;civil government&quot; of the city was in their hands, as the
+coinage proves it was; what becomes of Mr. Gladstone's original
+proposition in &quot;The Impregnable Rock of Scripture&quot; that &quot;the
+population of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the population
+of the neighbourhood,&quot; were &quot;Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law&quot;? And
+what is the importance of estimating the precise proportion of Hebrews
+who may have resided, either in the city of Gadara or in its
+independent territory, when, as Mr. Gladstone now seems to admit (I am
+careful to say &quot;seems&quot;), the government, and consequently the law,
+which ruled in that territory and defined civil right and wrong was
+Gentile and not Judaic? But perhaps Mr. Gladstone is prepared to
+maintain that the Gentile &quot;local civil government&quot; of a city of the
+Decapolis administered Jewish law; and showed their respect for it,
+more particularly, by stamping their coinage with effigies of the
+Emperors.</p>
+
+<p>In point of fact, in his haste to attribute to me errors which I have
+not committed, Mr. Gladstone has given away his case.</p>
+
+<p>PROP. 4. <i>He fatally confounds the question of political party with
+those of nationality and of religion, and assumes that those who took
+the side of Rome in the factions that prevailed could not be subject
+to the Mosaic Law</i>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 443 -->It would seem that I have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a
+&quot;fatal error.&quot; But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of
+controversy; say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently
+probable. Now it is not decently probable, hardly indeed conceivable,
+that any one who has read Josephus, or any other historian of the
+Jewish war, should be unaware that there were Jews (of whom Josephus
+himself was one) who &quot;Romanised&quot; and, more or less openly, opposed the
+war party. But, however that may be, I assert that Mr. Gladstone
+neither has produced, nor can produce, a passage of my writing which
+affords the slightest foundation for this particular article of his
+indictment.</p>
+
+<p>PROP. 5. <i>His examination of the text of Josephus is alike one-sided,
+inadequate, and erroneous.</i></p>
+
+<p>Easy to say, hard to prove. So long as the authorities whom I have
+cited are on my side, I do not know why this singularly temperate and
+convincing dictum should trouble me. I have yet to become acquainted
+with Mr. Gladstone's claims to speak with an authority equal to that
+of scholars of the rank of Sch&uuml;rer, whose obviously just and necessary
+emendations he so unceremoniously pooh-poohs.</p>
+
+<p>PROP. 6. <i>Finally, he sets aside, on grounds not critical or
+historical, but partly subjective, the primary historical testimony on
+the subject, namely, <!-- Page 444 -->that of the three Synoptic Evangelists, who
+write as contemporaries and deal directly with the subject, neither of
+which is done by any other authority</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Really this is too much! The fact is, as anybody can see who will turn
+to my article of February 1889 [VII. <i>supra</i>], out of which all this
+discussion has arisen, that the arguments upon which I rest the
+strength of my case touching the swine-miracle, are exactly
+&quot;historical&quot; and &quot;critical.&quot; Expressly, and in words that cannot be
+misunderstood, I refuse to rest on what Mr. Gladstone calls
+&quot;subjective&quot; evidence. I abstain from denying the possibility of the
+Gadarene occurrence, and I even go so far as to speak of some physical
+analogies to possession. In fact, my quondam opponent, Dr. Wace,
+shrewdly, but quite fairly, made the most of these admissions; and
+stated that I had removed the only &quot;consideration which would have
+been a serious obstacle&quot; in the way of his belief in the Gadarene
+story.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114" ></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p>
+
+<p>So far from setting aside the authority of the synoptics on
+&quot;subjective&quot; grounds, I have taken a great deal of trouble to show
+that my non-belief in the story is based upon what appears to me to be
+evident; firstly, that the accounts of the three synoptic Gospels are
+not independent, but are founded upon a common source; secondly, that,
+even if the story of the common tradition proceeded from a
+contemporary, it would still be <!-- Page 445 -->worthy of very little credit, seeing
+the manner in which the legends about medi&aelig;val miracles have been
+propounded by contemporaries. And in illustration of this position I
+wrote a special essay about the miracles reported by Eginhard.<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115" ></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p>
+
+<p>In truth, one need go no further than Mr. Gladstone's sixth
+proposition to be convinced that contemporary testimony, even of
+well-known and distinguished persons, may be but a very frail reed for
+the support of the historian, when theological prepossession blinds
+the witness.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116" ></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p>
+
+<p><!-- Page 446 -->PROP. 7. <i>And he treats the entire question, in the narrowed form in
+which it arises upon secular testimony, as if it were capable of a
+solution so clear and summary as to warrant the use of the extremest
+weapons of controversy against those who presume to differ from him.</i></p>
+
+<p>The six heretical propositions which have gone before are enunciated
+with sufficient clearness to enable me to prove, without any
+difficulty, that, whosesoever they are, they are not mine. But number
+seven, I confess, is too hard for me. I cannot undertake to contradict
+that which I do not understand.</p>
+
+<p>What is the &quot;entire question&quot; which &quot;arises&quot; in a &quot;narrowed form&quot; upon
+&quot;secular testimony&quot;? After much guessing, I am fain to give up the
+conundrum. The &quot;question&quot; may be the ownership of the pigs; or the
+ethnological character of the Gadarenes; or the propriety of meddling
+with other people's property without legal warrant. And each of these
+questions might be so &quot;narrowed&quot; when it arose on &quot;secular testimony&quot;
+that I should not know where I was. So I am silent on this part of the
+proposition.</p>
+
+<p>But I do dimly discern, in the latter moiety of this mysterious
+paragraph, a reproof of that use of &quot;the extremest weapons of
+controversy&quot; which is attributed to me. Upon which I have to observe
+<!-- Page 447 -->that I guide myself, in such matters, very much by the maxim of a
+great statesman, &quot;Do ut des.&quot; If Mr. Gladstone objects to the
+employment of such weapons of defence, he would do well to abstain
+from them in attack. He should not frame charges which he has,
+afterwards, to admit are erroneous, in language of carefully
+calculated offensiveness (&quot;Impregnable Rock,&quot; pp. 269-70); he should
+not assume that persons with whom he disagrees are so recklessly
+unconscientious as to evade the trouble of inquiring what has been
+said or known about a grave question (&quot;Impregnable Rock,&quot; p. 273); he
+should not qualify the results of careful thought as &quot;hand-over-head
+reasoning&quot; (&quot;Impregnable Rock,&quot; p. 274); he should not, as in the
+extraordinary propositions which I have just analysed, make assertions
+respecting his opponent's position and arguments which are
+contradicted by the plainest facts.</p>
+
+<p>Persons who, like myself, have spent their lives outside the political
+world, yet take a mild and philosophical concern in what goes on in
+it, often find it difficult to understand what our neighbours call the
+psychological moment of this or that party leader, and are,
+occasionally, loth to believe in the seeming conditions of certain
+kinds of success. And when some chieftain, famous in political
+warfare, adventures into the region of letters or of science, in full
+confidence that the methods which have brought fame and honour in <!-- Page 448 -->his
+own province will answer there, he is apt to forget that he will be
+judged by these people, on whom rhetorical artifices have long ceased
+to take effect; and to whom mere dexterity in putting together
+cleverly ambiguous phrases, and even the great art of offensive
+misrepresentation, are unspeakably wearisome. And, if that weariness
+finds its expression in sarcasm, the offender really has no right to
+cry out. Assuredly ridicule is no test of truth, but it is the
+righteous meed of some kinds of error. Nor ought the attempt to
+confound the expression of a revolted sense of fair dealing with
+arrogant impatience of contradiction, to restrain those to whom &quot;the
+extreme weapons of controversy&quot; come handy from using them. The
+function of police in the intellectual, if not in the civil, economy
+may sometimes be legitimately discharged by volunteers.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Some time ago in one of the many criticisms with which I am favoured,
+I met with the remark that, at our time of life, Mr. Gladstone and I
+might be better occupied than in fighting over the Gadarene pigs. And,
+if these too famous swine were the only parties to the suit, I, for my
+part, should fully admit the justice of the rebuke. But, under the
+beneficent rule of the Court of Chancery, in former times, it was not
+uncommon, that a quarrel about a few perches of worthless land, ended
+in the ruin of ancient families and <!-- Page 449 -->the engulfing of great estates;
+and I think that our admonisher failed to observe the analogy&mdash;to note
+the momentous consequences of the judgment which may be awarded in the
+present apparently insignificant action <i>in re</i> the swineherds of
+Gadara.</p>
+
+<p>The immediate effect of such judgment will be the decision of the
+question, whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the
+demonology of the men of the first century, as divinely revealed
+truth, or to reject it, as degrading falsity. The reverend Principal
+of King's College has delivered his judgment in perfectly clear and
+candid terms. Two years since, Dr. Wace said that he believed the
+story as it stands; and consequently he holds, as a part of divine
+revelation, that the spiritual world comprises devils, who, under
+certain circumstances, may enter men and be transferred from them to
+four-footed beasts. For the distinguished Anglican Divine and Biblical
+scholar, that is part and parcel of the teachings respecting the
+spiritual world which we owe to the founder of Christianity. It is an
+inseparable part of that Christian orthodoxy which, if a man rejects,
+he is to be considered and called an &quot;infidel.&quot; According to the
+ordinary rules of interpretation of language, Mr. Gladstone must hold
+the same view.</p>
+
+<p>If antiquity and universality are valid tests of the truth of any
+belief, no doubt this is one of the beliefs so certified. There are no
+known savages, <!-- Page 450 -->nor people sunk in the ignorance of partial
+civilisation, who do not hold them. The great majority of Christians
+have held them and still hold them. Moreover the oldest records we
+possess of the early conceptions of mankind in Egypt and in
+Mesopotamia prove that exactly such demonology, as is implied in the
+Gadarene story, formed the substratum, and, among the early Accadians,
+apparently the greater part, of their supposed knowledge of the
+spiritual world. M. Lenormant's profoundly interesting work on
+Babylonian magic and the magical texts given in the Appendix to
+Professor Sayce's &quot;Hibbert Lectures&quot; leave no doubt on this head. They
+prove that the doctrine of possession, and even the particular case of
+pig, possession,<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117" ></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> were firmly believed in by the Egyptians and the
+Mesopotamians before the tribes of Israel invaded Palestine. And it is
+evident that these beliefs, from some time after the exile and
+probably much earlier, completely interpenetrated the Jewish mind, and
+thus became inseparably interwoven with the fabric of the synoptic
+Gospels.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, behind the question of the acceptance of the doctrines of
+the oldest heathen demonology as part of the fundamental beliefs of
+Christianity, <!-- Page 451 -->there lies the question of the credibility of the
+Gospels, and of their claim to act as our instructors, outside that
+ethical province in which they appeal to the consciousness of all
+thoughtful men. And still, behind this problem, there lies
+another&mdash;how far do these ancient records give a sure foundation to
+the prodigious fabric of Christian dogma, which has been built upon
+them by the continuous labours of speculative theologians, during
+eighteen centuries?</p>
+
+<p>I submit that there are few questions before the men of the rising
+generation, on the answer to which the future hangs more fatally, than
+this. We are at the parting of the ways. Whether the twentieth century
+shall see a recrudescence of the superstitions of medi&aelig;val papistry,
+or whether it shall witness the severance of the living body of the
+ethical ideal of prophetic Israel from the carcase, foul with savage
+superstitions and cankered with false philosophy, to which the
+theologians have bound it, turns upon their final judgment of the
+Gadarene tale.</p>
+
+<p>The gravity of the problems ultimately involved in the discussion of
+the legend of Gadara will, I hope, excuse a persistence in returning
+to the subject, to which I should not have been moved by merely
+personal considerations.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to the diluvial invective which overflowed thirty-three
+pages of the &quot;Nineteenth<!-- Page 452 --> Century&quot; last January, I doubt not that it
+has a catastrophic importance in the estimation of its author. I, on
+the other hand, may be permitted to regard it as a mere spate; noisy
+and threatening while it lasted, but forgotten almost as soon as it
+was over. Without my help, it will be judged by every instructed and
+clear-headed reader; and that is fortunate, because, were aid
+necessary, I have cogent reasons for withholding it.</p>
+
+<p>In an article characterised by the same qualities of thought and
+diction, entitled &quot;A Great Lesson,&quot; which appeared in the &quot;Nineteenth
+Century&quot; for September 1887, the Duke of Argyll, firstly, charged the
+whole body of men of science, interested in the question, with having
+conspired to ignore certain criticisms of Mr. Darwin's theory of the
+origin of coral reefs; and, secondly, he asserted that some person
+unnamed had &quot;actually induced&quot; Mr. John Murray to delay the
+publication of his views on that subject &quot;for two years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was easy for me and for others to prove that the first statement
+was not only, to use the Duke of Argyll's favourite expression,
+&quot;contrary to fact,&quot; but that it was without any foundation whatever.
+The second statement rested on the Duke of Argyll's personal
+authority. All I could do was to demand the production of the evidence
+for it. Up to the present time, so far as I know, that evidence has
+not made its appearance; nor <!-- Page 453 -->has there been any withdrawal of, or
+apology for, the erroneous charge.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances most people will understand why the Duke of
+Argyll may feel quite secure of having the battle all to himself,
+whenever it pleases him to attack me.</p>
+
+<p>[See the note at the end of &quot;Hasisadra's Adventure&quot; (vol iv. p. 283).
+The discussion on coral reefs, at the meeting of the British
+Association this year, proves that Mr. Darwin's views are defended
+now, as strongly as in 1891, by highly competent authorities. October
+25, 1893.]</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, February 1891, pp. 339-40.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Neither is it of any consequence whether the locality
+of the supposed miracle was Gadara, or Gerasa, or Gergesa. But I may
+say that I was well acquainted with Origen's opinion respecting
+Gergesa. It is fully discussed and rejected in Riehm's
+<i>Handw&ouml;rterbuch</i>. In Kitto's <i>Biblical Cyclop&aelig;dia</i> (ii. p. 51)
+Professor Porter remarks that Origen merely &quot;<i>conjectures</i>&quot; that
+Gergesa was indicated: and he adds, &quot;Now, in a question of this kind
+conjectures cannot be admitted. We must implicitly follow the most
+ancient and creditable testimony, which clearly pronounces in favour
+of &#915;&#945;&#948;&#945;&#961;&#951;&#957;&#8033;&#957;. This reading is adopted by Tischendorf,
+Alford, and Tregelles.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> I may call attention, in passing, to the fact that this
+authority, at any rate, has no sort of doubt of the fact that Jewish
+Law did not rule in Gadara (indeed, under the head of &quot;Gadara,&quot; in the
+same work, it is expressly stated that the population of the place
+consisted &quot;predominantly of heathens&quot;), and that he scouts the notion
+that the Gadarene swineherds were Jews.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> The evidence adduced, so far as post-exile times are
+concerned, appears to me insufficient to prove this assertion.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Even Leviticus xi. 26, cited without reference to the
+context, will not serve the purpose; because the swine <i>is</i>
+&quot;cloven-footed&quot; (Lev. xi. 7).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> 1st Gospel: &quot;And the devils <i>besought him</i>, saying, If
+Thou cast us out send us away <i>into</i> the herd of swine.&quot; 2d Gospel:
+&quot;They <i>besought him</i>, saying, Send us <i>into</i> the swine.&quot; 3d Gospel:
+&quot;They <i>intreated him</i> that he would give them leave to enter <i>into</i>
+them.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> See Marquardt, <i>R&ouml;mische Staatsverwaltung</i>, Bd. III. p.
+408.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, March 1889 (p. 362).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> &quot;The Value of Witness to the Miraculous.&quot; <i>Nineteenth
+Century</i>, March 1889.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> I cannot ask the Editor of this Review to reprint pages
+of an old article,&mdash;but the following passages sufficiently illustrate
+the extent and the character of the discrepancy between the facts of
+the case and Mr. Gladstone's account of them:&mdash;
+</p><p>
+&quot;Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably
+sceptical if I say that the existence of demons who can be transferred
+from a man to a pig does thus contravene probability. Let me be
+perfectly candid. I admit I have no <i>&agrave; priori</i> objection to offer....
+I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show cause why
+these transferable devils should not exist.&quot; ... (&quot;Agnosticism,&quot;
+<i>Nineteenth Century</i>, 1889, p. 177).
+</p><p>
+&quot;What then do we know about the originator, or originators, of this
+groundwork&mdash;of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in
+Paley's phrase) agree upon&mdash;that we should allow their mere statements
+to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of
+exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad to
+be able to render to their Master?&quot; (<i>ibid</i>. p. 175).
+</p><p>
+I then go on through a couple of pages to discuss the value of the
+evidence of the synoptics on critical and historical grounds. Mr.
+Gladstone cites the essay from which these passages are taken, whence
+I suppose he has read it; though it may be that he shares the
+impatience of Cardinal Manning where my writings are concerned. Such
+impatience will account for, though it will not excuse, his sixth
+proposition.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117" ></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> The wicked, before being annihilated, returned to the
+world to disturb men; they entered into the body of unclean animals,
+&quot;often that of a pig, as on the Sarcophagus of Seti I. in the Soane
+Museum.&quot;&mdash;Lenormant, <i>Chaldean Magic,</i> p. 88, Editorial Note.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><b>END OF VOL. V</b></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+<b>THOMAS H. HUXLEY'S WORKS</b>.<br />
+<br />
+Collected. Essays, 12mo, cloth, $1.25 per volume.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vol. 1. Method and Results.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 2. Darwiniana.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 3. Science and Education.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 4. Science and Hebrew Tradition.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 5. Science and Christian Tradition.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 6. Hume.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 7. Man's Place in Nature.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 8. Discourses, Biological and Geological.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&quot;&nbsp; 9. Evolution and Ethics, and Other Essays.</span><br />
+<br />
+The Crayfish:<br />
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+Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebrated<br />
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+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Animals. Illustrated. 12mo, cloth, $2.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+Physiography:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">An Introduction to the Study of Nature. With</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Illustrations and Colored Plates. 12mo, cloth, $2.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+The Origin of Species;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or, The Causes of the Phenomena of Nature.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">12mo, cloth, $1.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+&quot;THE BOOK OF THE YEAR.&quot;<br /><!-- Page 454 --><!-- Page 455 -->
+<br />
+LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By his Son, LEONARD HUXLEY.</span><br />
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+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">character to the nineteenth century will be welcomed by a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">far wider circle of readers than that which is interested in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Huxley's strictly scientific researches.... These two richly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">interesting volumes are sure to be widely read.&quot;&mdash;<i>London</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Times</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;It 'goes without saying' what precious freight was carried</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">by Huxley's letters.... These two delightful</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">volumes.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Chronicle</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Huxley's life was so full, so active, so many-sided, in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">touch with such a number of interesting people, that this</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">work appeals to all sorts and conditions of men.... An</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">admirably written biography.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Standard</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;His letters are a self-revelation of the man, his work, his</span><br />
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+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Whoso reads these volumes will feel that he knows better a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">man worth knowing, and the number who will read them will be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">great.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Telegraph</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Huxley's career makes a wonderful story.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Mail</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Mr. Leonard Huxley has given the world many extremely</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">valuable and interesting letters, all characteristic, and he</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">has connected them by a well-written consecutive narrative</span><br />
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+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+RECENT BOOKS BY DISTINGUISHED SPECIALISTS.<br /><!-- Page 456 -->
+<br />
+THE COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY OF ANIMALS.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By Prof. JOSEPH LE CONTE.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+EVOLUTION BY ATROPHY.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By JEAN DEMOOR, JEAN MASSART, and &Eacute;MILE VANDERVELDE.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">A new volume in the International Scientific Series.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12mo, Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">A Series of Popular Addresses on the Evolution of Life.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By DAVID STARR JORDAN, Ph.D.,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">President of Leland Stanford Junior University.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+OUTLINES OF THE EARTH'S HISTORY.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">A Popular Study in Physiography.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By Prof. N.S. SHALER, of Harvard University.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+STUDIES OF GOOD AND EVIL.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By JOSIAH ROYCE,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Professor of the History of Philosophy in Harvard University.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+EVOLUTION ETHICS AND ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By E.P. EVANS,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Author of &quot;Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture,&quot; etc.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.75.</span><br />
+<br />
+WAGES AND CAPITAL.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">An Examination of the Wages Fund Doctrine.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By F.W. TAUSSIG, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Author of &quot;Tariff History of the United State&quot; and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">&quot;The Silver Situation in the United States.&quot;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+WHAT IS ELECTRICITY?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By Prof. JOHN TROWBRIDGE, of Harvard University.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUGGESTION.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">A Research into the Subconscious Nature of Man and Society.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">By BORIS SIDIS, M.A., Ph.D.,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Associate in Psychology at the Pathological Institute</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">of the New York State Hospitals.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">With an Introduction by Prof. William James, of Harvard University.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+SPENCER'S SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY, 12mo, cloth, $2.00 per volume.<br /><!-- Page 457 -->
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>NEW EDITION OF</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">First Principles.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By HERBERT SPENCER. New and revised (sixth) edition of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">first volume of the author's Synthetic Philosophy.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">This fundamental and most important work has been changed in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">substance and in form to a considerable extent, and largely</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">rewritten and wholly reset. It is now forty years since the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">author began the &quot;First Principles,&quot; and its presentation in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">this definitive form, with the author's last revisions, is</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">an event of peculiar interest and consequence. While</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">experience has not caused him to recede from the general</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">principles set forth, he has made some important changes in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the substance and form. His amendments of matter and manner</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">are now final.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The contents of the several volumes of the series are as</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">follows:</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">1. First Principles.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">I. The Unknowable.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">II. The Knowable.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">2. The Principles of Biology. Vol. 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">I. The Data of Biology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">II. The Inductions of Biology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">III. The Evolution of Life.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">3. The Principles of Biology. Vol. 2.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">IV. Morphological Development.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">V. Physiological Development.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">VI. Laws of Multiplication.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">4. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">I. The Data of Psychology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">II. The Inductions of Psychology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">III. General Synthesis.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">IV. Special Synthesis.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">V. Physical Synthesis.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">5. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 2.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">VI. Special Analysis.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">VII. General Analysis.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">VIII. Congruities.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">IX. Corollaries.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">6. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">I. The Data of Sociology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">II. The Inductions of Sociology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">III. The Domestic Relations.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">7. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 2.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">IV. Ceremonial Institutions.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">V. Political Institutions.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">8. The Principles of Sociology. Vol. 3.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">VI. Ecclesiastical Institutions.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">VII. Professional Institutions.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">VIII. Industrial Institutions.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">9. The Principles of Ethics. Vol. 1.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">I. The Data of Ethics.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">II. The Inductions of Ethics.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">III. The Ethics of Individual Life.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">10. The Principles of Ethics. Vol. 2.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">IV. The Ethics of Social Life: Justice.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">V. The Ethics of Social Life: Negative Beneficence.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">VI. The Ethics of Social Life: Positive Beneficence.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+BOOKS BY PROF. G. FREDERICK WRIGHT.<br /><!-- Page 458 -->
+<br />
+THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A.,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Professor of the Harmony of Science and Revelation, Oberlin College;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Author of &quot;The Logic of Christian Evidences,&quot;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The Ice Age in North America,&quot; etc.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">This volume contains the ripest fruit of the author's varied</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">studies along the several cognate lines of evidence which</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">converge with special power in recent times to shed light</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">upon the foundations of Christianity. Among the subjects</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">discussed are Limits of Scientific Thought, Paradoxes of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Science, God and Nature, Darwinism and Design, Mediate</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Miracles, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, The Newly Discovered</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">External Evidences, The Evidence of Textual Criticism,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Internal Evidence of the Early Date of the Gospel, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Positive Results of the Cumulative Evidence. These chapters</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">are an elaboration of the Lowell Institute Lectures</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">delivered in Boston in 1896.</span><br />
+<br />
+GREENLAND ICEFIELDS, AND LIFE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With a New Discussion of the Causes of the Ice Age.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A., Author of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The Ice Age in North America,&quot; &quot;Man and the Glacial</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Period,&quot; etc., and WARREN UPHAM, A.M., F.G.S.A., late of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Geological Surveys of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">United States. With numerous Maps and Illustrations. 12mo.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Cloth, $2.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+THE ICE AGE IN NORTH AMERICA, and its Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With an Appendix on &quot;The Probable Cause of Glaciation,&quot; by</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">WARREN UPHAM, F.G.S.A., Assistant on the Geological Surveys</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the United States. New and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">enlarged edition. With 150 Maps and Illustrations. 8vo, 625</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">pages, and Index. Cloth, $5.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">International Scientific Series.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The earlier chapters describing glacial action, and the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">traces of it in North America&mdash;especially the defining of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">its limits, such as the terminal moraine of the great</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">movement itself&mdash;are of great interest and value The maps</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and diagrams are of much assistance in enabling the reader</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">to grasp the vast extent of the movement.&quot;&mdash;<i>London</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Spectator</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS.<br /><!-- Page 459 -->
+<br />
+MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF HERBERT SPENCER.<br />
+<br />
+SOCIAL STATICS.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">New and revised edition, including &quot;The Man <i>versus</i> The</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">State.&quot; A series of essays on political tendencies</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">heretofore published separately. 12mo. 420 pages. Cloth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">$2.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Mr. Spencer has thoroughly studied the issues which are</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">behind the social and political life of our own time, not</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">exactly those issues which are discussed in Parliament or in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Congress, but the principles of all modern government, which</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">are slowly changing in response to the broader industrial</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and general development of human experience. One will obtain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">no suggestions out of his book for guiding a political party</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">or carrying a point in economics, but he will find the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">principles of sociology, as they pertain to the whole of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">life, better stated in these pages than he can find them</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">expressed anywhere else. It is in this sense that this work</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">is important and fresh and vitalizing. It goes constantly to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the foundation of things.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston Herald</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+VARIOUS FRAGMENTS,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.25.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Along with a considerable variety of other matter, these</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Fragments&quot; include a number of replies to criticisms, among</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">which will be found some of the best specimens of Mr.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Spencer's controversial writings, notably his letter to the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">London <i>Athen�um</i> on Professor Huxley's famous address on</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Evolutionary Ethics. His views on copyright, national and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">international, &quot;Social Evolution and Social Duty,&quot; and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Anglo-American Arbitration,&quot; also form a part of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">contents.</span><br />
+<br />
+EDUCATION: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.25.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">CONTENTS: What Knowledge is of most Worth? Intellectual</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Education. Moral Education. Physical Education.</span><br />
+<br />
+THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The fifth volume in the International scientific Series.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">CONTENTS: Our need of it. Is there a Social Science? Nature</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of the Social Science. Difficulties of the Social Science.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Objective Difficulties. Subjective Difficulties,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Intellectual. Subjective Difficulties, Emotional, The</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Educational Bias. The Bias of Patriotism. The Class Bias.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The Political Bias. The Theological Bias. Discipline.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Preparation in Biology. Preparation in Psychology.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Conclusion.</span><br />
+<br />
+THE INADEQUACY OF &quot;NATURAL SELECTION.&quot;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Paper, 30 cents.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">This essay, in which Professor Weismann's theories are</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">criticised, is reprinted from the <i>Contemporary Review</i>, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">comprises a forcible presentation of Mr. Spencer's views</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">upon the general subject indicated in the title.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.<br /><!-- Page 460 -->
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sketches of their Lives and Scientific Work.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Edited and revised by WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS, M.D.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With Portraits. 8vo, Cloth, $4.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Impelled solely by an enthusiastic love of Nature, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">neither asking nor receiving outside aid, these early</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">workers opened the way and initiated the movement through</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">which American science has reached its present commanding</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">position. This book gives some account of these men, their</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">early struggles, their scientific labors, and, whenever</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">possible, something of their personal characteristics. This</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">information, often very difficult to obtain, has been</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">collected from a great variety of sources, with the utmost</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">care to secure accuracy. It is presented in a series of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">sketches, some fifty in all, each with a single exception</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">accompanied with a well-authenticated portrait.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Fills a place that needed filling, and is likely to be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">widely read.&quot;&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sun</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;It is certainly a useful and convenient volume, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">readable too, if we judge correctly of the degree of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">accuracy of the whole by critical examination of those cases</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">in which our own knowledge enables us to form an opinion....</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In general, it seems to us that the handy volume is</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">specially to be commended for setting in just historical</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">perspective many of the earlier scientists who are neither</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">very generally nor very well known.&quot;&mdash;<i>New York Evening</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Post</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A wonderfully interesting volume. Many a young man will</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">find it fascinating. The compilation of the book is a work</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">well done, well worth the doing.&quot;&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;One of the most valuable books which we have</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">received.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston Advertiser</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A book of no little educational value.... An extremely</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">valuable work of reference.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston Beacon</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A valuable handbook for those whose work runs on these same</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">lines, and is likely to prove of lasting interest to those</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">for whom '<i>les documents humain</i>' are second only to history</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">in importance&mdash;nay, are a vital part of history.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Transcript</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A biographical history of science in America, noteworthy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">for its completeness and scope.... All of the sketches are</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">excellently prepared and unusually interesting.&quot;&mdash;<i>Chicago</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Record</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;One of the most valuable contributions to American</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">literature recently made.... The pleasing style in which</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">these sketches are written, the plans taken to secure</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">accuracy, and the information conveyed, combine to give them</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">great value and interest. No better or more inspiring</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">reading could be placed in the hands of an intelligent and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">aspiring young man.&quot;&mdash;<i>New York Christian Work</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A book whose interest and value are not for to-day or</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">to-morrow, but for indefinite time.&quot;&mdash;<i>Rochester Herald</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;It is difficult to imagine a reader of ordinary</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">intelligence who would not be entertained by the book....</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Conciseness, exactness, urbanity of tone, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">interestingness are the four qualities which chiefly impress</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the reader of these sketches.&quot;&mdash;<i>Buffalo Express</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Full of interesting and valuable matter.&quot;&mdash;<i>The Churchman</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+New York: D. APPLETON &amp; CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION, from Thales to Huxley.<br /><!-- Page 461 -->
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By EDWARD CLODD, President of the Folk-Lore Society;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Author of &quot;The Story of Creation,&quot;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The Story of 'Primitive' Man,&quot; etc.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With Portraits. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The mass of interesting material which Mr. Clodd has got</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">together and woven into a symmetrical story of the progress</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">from ignorance and theory to knowledge and the intelligent</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">recording of fact is prodigious.... The 'goal' to which Mr.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Clodd leads us in so masterly a fashion is but the starting</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">point of fresh achievements, and, in due course, fresh</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">theories. His book furnishes an important contribution to a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">liberal education.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Daily Chronicle</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;We are always glad to meet Mr. Clodd. He is never dull; he</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">is always well informed, and he says what he has to say with</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">clearness and precision.... The interest intensifies as Mr.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Clodd attempts to show the part really played in the growth</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of the doctrine of evolution by men like Wallace, Darwin,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Huxley, and Spencer.... We commend the book to those who</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">want to know what evolution really means.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Times</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;This is a book which was needed.... Altogether, the book</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">could hardly be better done. It is luminous, lucid, orderly,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and temperate. Above all, it is entirely free from personal</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">partisanship. Each chief actor is sympathetically treated,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and friendship is seldom or never allowed to overweight</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">sound judgment.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Academy</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;We can assure the reader that he will find in this work a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">very useful guide to the lives and labors of leading</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">evolutionists of the past and present. Especially</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">serviceable is the account of Mr. Herbert Spencer and his</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">share in rediscovering evolution, and illustrating its</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">relations to the whole field of human knowledge. His</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">forcible style and wealth of metaphor make all that Mr.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Clodd writes arrestive and interesting.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Literary</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>World</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Can not but prove welcome to fair-minded men.... To read it</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">is to have an object-lesson in the meaning of evolution....</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">There is no better book on the subject for the general</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">reader.... No one could go through the book without being</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">both refreshed and newly instructed by its masterly survey</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of the growth of the most powerful idea of modern</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">times.&quot;&mdash;<i>The Scotsman</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+EVOLUTION OF MAN AND CHRISTIANITY.<br /><!-- Page 462 -->
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">New edition. By the Rev. HOWARD MACQUEARY.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">With a new Preface, in which the Author answers his Critics,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and with some important Additions. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;This is a revised and enlarged edition of a book published</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">last year. The author reviews criticisms upon the first</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">edition, denies that he rejects the doctrine of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">incarnation, admits his doubts of the physical resurrection</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of Christ, and his belief in evolution. The volume is to be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">marked as one of the most profound expressions of the modern</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">movement toward broader theological positions.&quot;&mdash;<i>Brooklyn</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Times</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;He does not write with the animus of the destructive</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">school; he intends to be, and honestly believes he is, doing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">a work of construction, or at least of reconstruction.... He</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">writes with manifest earnestness and conviction, and in a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">style which is always clear and energetic.&quot;&mdash;<i>Churchman</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By Dr. JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $1.75.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The key-note to this volume is found in the antagonism</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">between the progressive tendencies of the human mind and the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">pretensions of ecclesiastical authority, as developed in the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">history of modern science. No previous writer has treated</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the subject from this point of view, and the present</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">monograph will be found to possess no less originality of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">conception than vigor of reasoning and wealth of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">erudition.&quot;&mdash;<i>New York Tribune</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+A CRITICAL HISTORY OF FREE THOUGHT IN REFERENCE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By Rev. Canon ADAM STOREY FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., etc.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $2.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A conflict might naturally be anticipated between the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">reasoning faculties of man and a religion which claims the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">right, on superhuman authority, to impose limits on the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">field or manner of their exercise. It is the chief of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">movements of free thought which it is my purpose to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">describe, in their historic succession, and their connection</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">with intellectual causes. We must ascertain the facts,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">discover the causes, and read the moral.&quot;&mdash;<i>The Author</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+CREATION OR EVOLUTION? A Philosophical Inquiry.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">12mo. Cloth, $2.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A treatise on the great question of Creation or Evolution</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">by one who is neither a naturalist nor theologian, and who</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">does not profess to bring to the discussion a special</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">equipment in either of the sciences which the controversy</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">arrays against each other, may seem strange at first sight;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">but Mr. Curtis will satisfy the reader, before many pages</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">have been turned, that he has a substantial contribution to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">make to the debate, and that his book is one to be treated</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">with respect. His part is to apply to the reasonings of the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">men of science the rigid scrutiny with which the lawyer is</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">accustomed to test the value and pertinency of testimony,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">and the legitimacy of inferences from established</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">facts.&quot;&mdash;<i>New York Tribune</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Mr. Curtis's book is honorably distinguished from a sadly</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">too great proportion of treatises which profess to discuss</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the relation of scientific theories to religion, by its</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">author's thorough acquaintance with his subject, his</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">scrupulous fairness, and remarkable freedom from</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">passion.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Literary World</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON &amp; CO., 72 Fifth Avenue, New York.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY.<br /><!-- Page 463 -->
+A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By ANDREW D. WHITE, LL.D., late President and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Professor of History at Cornell University.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">In two volumes. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The story of the struggle of searchers after truth with the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">organized forces of ignorance, bigotry, and superstition is</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the most inspiring chapter in the whole history of mankind.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">That story has never been better told than by the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">ex-President of Cornell University in these two volumes....</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">A wonderful story it is that he tells.&quot;&mdash;<i>London Daily</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Chronicle</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A literary event of prime importance is the appearance of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Christendom.'&quot;&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Such an honest and thorough treatment of the subject in all</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">its bearings that it will carry weight and be accepted as an</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">authority in tracing the process by which the scientific</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">method has come to be supreme in modern thought and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">life.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston Herald</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A great work of a great man upon great subjects, and will</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">always be a religio-scientific classic.&quot;&mdash;<i>Chicago Evening</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Post</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;It is graphic, lucid, even-tempered&mdash;never bitter nor</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">vindictive. No student of human progress should fail to read</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">these volumes. While they have about them the fascination of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">a well-told tale, they are also crowded with the facts of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">history that have had a tremendous bearing upon the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">development of the race.&quot;&mdash;<i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The same liberal spirit that marked his public life is seen</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">in the pages of his book, giving it a zest and interest that</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">can not fail to secure for it hearty commendation and honest</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">praise.&quot;&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Public Ledger</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A conscientious summary of the body of learning to which it</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">relates accumulated during long years of research.... A</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">monument of industry.&quot;&mdash;<i>N.Y. Evening Post</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;A work which constitutes in many ways the most instructive</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">review that has ever been written of the evolution of human</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">knowledge in its conflict with dogmatic belief.... As a</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">contribution to the literature of liberal thought, the book</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">is one the importance of which can not be easily</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">overrated.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston Beacon</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The most valuable contribution that has yet been made to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the history of the conflicts between the theologists and the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">scientists.&quot;&mdash;<i>Buffalo Commercial</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;Undoubtedly the most exhaustive treatise which has been</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">written on this subject.... Able, scholarly, critical,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">impartial in tone and exhaustive in treatment.&quot;&mdash;<i>Boston</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Advertiser</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+New York: D. APPLETON &amp; CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>
+A NEW BOOK BY PROF. GROOS.<br /><!-- Page 464 -->
+<br />
+THE PLAY OF MAN.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">By KARL GROOS, Professor of Philosophy in the University of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Basel, and author of &quot;The Play of Animals.&quot; Translated, with</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the author's cooperation, by Elizabeth L. Baldwin, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">edited, with a Preface and Appendix, by Prof. J. Mark</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Baldwin, of Princeton University. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50 net;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">postage, 12 cents additional.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The results of Professor Groos's original and acute</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">investigations are of peculiar value to those who are</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">interested in psychology and sociology, and they are of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">great importance to educators. He presents the</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">anthropological aspects of the subject treated in his</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">psychological study of the Play of Animals, which has</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">already become a classic. Professor Groos, who agrees with</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the followers of Weismann, develops the great importance of</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the child's play as tending to strengthen his inheritance in</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">the acquisition of adaptations to his environment. The</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">influence of play on character, and its relation to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">education, are suggestively indicated. The playful</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">manifestations affecting the child himself and those</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">affecting his relations to others have been carefully</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">classified, and the reader is led from the simpler exercises</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">of the sensory apparatus through a variety of divisions to</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">inner imitations and social play. The biological, &aelig;sthetic,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">ethical, and pedagogical standpoints receive much attention</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">from the investigator. While this book is an illuminating</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">contribution to scientific literature, it is of eminently</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">practical value. Its illustrations and lessons will be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">studied and applied by educators, and the importance of this</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">original presentation of a most fertile subject will be</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">appreciated by parents as well as by those who are</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">interested as general students of sociological and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">psychological themes.</span><br />
+<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Collected Essays, Volume V, by T. H. Huxley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME V ***
+
+***** This file should be named 15905-h.htm or 15905-h.zip *****
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diff --git a/15905.txt b/15905.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Essays, Volume V, by T. H. Huxley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Collected Essays, Volume V
+       Science and Christian Tradition: Essays
+
+Author: T. H. Huxley
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2005 [EBook #15905]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME V ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+www.pgdp.net.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+COLLECTED ESSAYS; VOLUME V
+
+SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION
+
+BY THOMAS H. HUXLEY
+
+NEW YORK, D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1902
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+"For close upon forty years I have been writing with one purpose; from
+time to time, I have fought for that which seemed to me the truth,
+perhaps still more, against that which I have thought error; and, in
+this way, I have reached, indeed over-stepped, the threshold of old
+age. There, every earnest man has to listen to the voice within: 'Give
+an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward.'
+
+"That I have been an unjust steward my conscience does not bear
+witness. At times blundering, at times negligent, Heaven knows: but,
+on the whole, I have done that which I felt able and called upon to
+do; and I have done it without looking to the right or to the left;
+seeking no man's favor, fearing no man's disfavor.
+
+"But what is it that I have been doing? In the end one's conceptions
+should form a whole, though only parts may have found utterance, as
+occasion arose; now do these exhibit harmony and mutual connexion? In
+one's zeal much of the old gets broken to pieces; but has one made
+ready something new, fit to be set in the place of the old?
+
+"That they merely destroy without reconstructing, is the especial
+charge, with which those who work in this direction are constantly
+reproached. In a certain sense I do not defend myself against the
+charge; but I deny that any reproach is deserved.
+
+"I have never proposed to myself to begin outward construction;
+because I do not believe that the time has come for it. Our present
+business is with inward preparation, especially the preparation of
+those who have ceased to be content with the old, and find no
+satisfaction in half measures. I have wished, and I still wish, to
+disturb no man's peace of mind, no man's beliefs; but only to point
+out to those in whom they are already shattered, the direction in
+which, in my conviction, firmer ground lies."[1]
+
+So wrote one of the protagonists of the New Reformation--and a
+well-abused man if ever there was one--a score of years since, in the
+remarkable book in which he discusses the negative and the positive
+results of the rigorous application of scientific method to the
+investigation of the higher problems of human life.
+
+Recent experience leads me to imagine that there may be a good many
+countrymen of my own, even at this time, to whom it may be profitable
+to read, mark and inwardly digest, the weighty words of the author of
+that "Leben Jesu," which, half a century ago, stirred the religious
+world so seriously that it has never settled down again quite on the
+old foundations; indeed, some think it never will. I have a personal
+interest in the carrying out of the recommendation I venture to make.
+It may enable many worthy persons, in whose estimation I should really
+be glad to stand higher than I do, to become aware of the possibility
+that my motives in writing the essays, contained in this and the
+preceding volume, were not exactly those that they ascribe to me.
+
+I too have reached the term at which the still, small voice, more
+audible than any other to the dulled ear of age, makes its demand; and
+I have found that it is of no sort of use to try to cook the accounts
+rendered. Nevertheless, I distinctly decline to admit some of the
+items charged; more particularly that of having "gone out of my way"
+to attack the Bible; and I as steadfastly deny that "hatred of
+Christianity" is a feeling with which I have any acquaintance. There
+are very few things which I find it permissible to hate; and though,
+it may be, that some of the organisations, which arrogate to
+themselves the Christian name, have richly earned a place in the
+category of hateful things, that ought to have nothing to do with
+one's estimation of the religion, which they have perverted and
+disfigured out of all likeness to the original.
+
+The simple fact is that, as I have already more than once hinted, my
+story is that of the wolf and the lamb over again. I have never "gone
+out of my way" to attack the Bible, or anything else: it was the
+dominant ecclesiasticism of my early days, which, as I believe,
+without any warrant from the Bible itself, thrust the book in my way.
+
+I had set out on a journey, with no other purpose than that of
+exploring a certain province of natural knowledge; I strayed no hair's
+breadth from the course which it was my right and my duty to pursue;
+and yet I found that, whatever route I took, before long, I came to a
+tall and formidable-looking fence. Confident as I might be in the
+existence of an ancient and indefeasible right of way, before me stood
+the thorny barrier with its comminatory notice-board--"No
+Thoroughfare. By order. Moses." There seemed no way over; nor did the
+prospect of creeping round, as I saw some do, attract me. True there
+was no longer any cause to fear the spring guns and man-traps set by
+former lords of the manor; but one is apt to get very dirty going on
+all-fours. The only alternatives were either to give up my
+journey--which I was not minded to do--or to break the fence down and
+go through it.
+
+Now I was and am, by nature, a law-abiding person, ready and willing
+to submit to all legitimate authority. But I also had and have a
+rooted conviction, that reasonable assurance of the legitimacy should
+precede the submission; so I made it my business to look up the
+manorial title-deeds. The pretensions of the ecclesiastical "Moses" to
+exercise a control over the operations of the reasoning faculty in the
+search after truth, thirty centuries after his age, might be
+justifiable; but, assuredly, the credentials produced in justification
+of claims so large required careful scrutiny.
+
+Singular discoveries rewarded my industry. The ecclesiastical "Moses"
+proved to be a mere traditional mask, behind which, no doubt, lay the
+features of the historical Moses--just as many a mediaeval fresco has
+been hidden by the whitewash of Georgian churchwardens. And as the
+aesthetic rector too often scrapes away the defacement, only to find
+blurred, parti-coloured patches, in which the original design is no
+longer to be traced; so, when the successive layers of Jewish and
+Christian traditional pigment, laid on, at intervals, for near three
+thousand years, had been removed, by even the tenderest critical
+operations, there was not much to be discerned of the leader of the
+Exodus.
+
+Only one point became perfectly clear to me, namely, that Moses is not
+responsible for nine-tenths of the Pentateuch; certainly not for the
+legends which had been made the bugbears of science. In fact, the
+fence turned out to be a mere heap of dry sticks and brushwood, and
+one might walk through it with impunity: the which I did. But I was
+still young, when I thus ventured to assert my liberty; and young
+people are apt to be filled with a kind of _saeva indignatio_, when
+they discover the wide discrepancies between things as they seem and
+things as they are. It hurts their vanity to feel that they have
+prepared themselves for a mighty struggle to climb over, or break
+their way through, a rampart, which turns out, on close approach, to
+be a mere heap of ruins; venerable, indeed, and archaeologically
+interesting, but of no other moment. And some fragment of the
+superfluous energy accumulated is apt to find vent in strong language.
+
+Such, I suppose, was my case, when I wrote some passages which occur
+in an essay reprinted among "Darwiniana."[2] But when, not long ago
+"the voice" put it to me, whether I had better not expunge, or modify,
+these passages; whether, really, they were not a little too strong; I
+had to reply, with all deference, that while, from a merely literary
+point of view, I might admit them to be rather crude, I must stand by
+the substance of these items of my expenditure. I further ventured to
+express the conviction that scientific criticism of the Old Testament,
+since 1860, has justified every word of the estimate of the authority
+of the ecclesiastical "Moses" written at that time. And, carried away
+by the heat of self-justification, I even ventured to add, that the
+desperate attempt now set afoot to force biblical and post-biblical
+mythology into elementary instruction, renders it useful and necessary
+to go on making a considerable outlay in the same direction. Not yet,
+has "the cosmogony of the semi-barbarous Hebrew" ceased to be the
+"incubus of the philosopher, and the opprobrium of the orthodox;" not
+yet, has "the zeal of the Bibliolater" ceased from troubling; not yet,
+are the weaker sort, even of the instructed, at rest from their
+fruitless toil "to harmonise impossibilities," and "to force the
+generous new wine of science into the old bottles of Judaism."
+
+But I am aware that the head and front of my offending lies not now
+where it formerly lay. Thirty years ago, criticism of "Moses" was held
+by most respectable people to be deadly sin; now it has sunk to the
+rank of a mere peccadillo; at least, if it stops short of the history
+of Abraham. Destroy the foundation of most forms of dogmatic
+Christianity contained in the second chapter of Genesis, if you will;
+the new ecclesiasticism undertakes to underpin the superstructure and
+make it, at any rate to the eye, as firm as ever: but let him be
+anathema who applies exactly the same canons of criticism to the
+opening chapters of "Matthew" or of "Luke." School-children may be
+told that the world was by no means made in six days, and that
+implicit belief in the story of Noah's Ark is permissible only, as a
+matter of business, to their toy-makers; but they are to hold for the
+certainest of truths, to be doubted only at peril of their salvation,
+that their Galilean fellow-child Jesus, nineteen centuries ago, had no
+human father.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, we will pass the item of 1860, said "the voice." But why all
+this more recent coil about the Gadarene swine and the like? Do you
+pretend that these poor animals got in your way, years and years after
+the "Mosaic" fences were down, at any rate so far as you are
+concerned?
+
+Got in my way? Why, my good "voice," they were driven in my way. I had
+happened to make a statement, than which, so far as I have ever been
+able to see, nothing can be more modest or inoffensive; to wit, that I
+am convinced of my own utter ignorance about a great number of things,
+respecting which the great majority of my neighbours (not only those
+of adult years, but children repeating their catechisms) affirm
+themselves to possess full information. I ask any candid and impartial
+judge, Is that attacking anybody or anything?
+
+Yet, if I had made the most wanton and arrogant onslaught on the
+honest convictions of other people, I could not have been more hardly
+dealt with. The pentecostal charism, I believe, exhausted itself
+amongst the earliest disciples. Yet any one who has had to attend, as
+I have done, to copious objurgations, strewn with such appellations as
+"infidel" and "coward," must be a hardened sceptic indeed if he doubts
+the existence of a "gift of tongues" in the Churches of our time;
+unless, indeed, it should occur to him that some of these outpourings
+may have taken place after "the third hour of the day." I am far from
+thinking that it is worth while to give much attention to these
+inevitable incidents of all controversies, in which one party has
+acquired the mental peculiarities which are generated by the habit of
+much talking, with immunity from criticism. But as a rule, they are
+the sauce of dishes of misrepresentations and inaccuracies which it
+may be a duty, nay, even an innocent pleasure, to expose. In the
+particular case of which I am thinking, I felt, as Strauss says, "able
+and called upon" to undertake the business: and it is no
+responsibility of mine, if I found the Gospels, with their miraculous
+stories, of which the Gadarene is a typical example, blocking my way,
+as heretofore, the Pentateuch had done.
+
+I was challenged to question the authority for the theory of "the
+spiritual world," and the practical consequences deducible from human
+relations to it, contained in these documents.
+
+In my judgment, the actuality of this spiritual world--the value of
+the evidence for its objective existence and its influence upon the
+course of things--are matters, which lie as much within the province
+of science, as any other question about the existence and powers of
+the varied forms of living and conscious activity.
+
+It really is my strong conviction that a man has no more right to say
+he believes this world is haunted by swarms of evil spirits, without
+being able to produce satisfactory evidence of the fact, than he has a
+right to say, without adducing adequate proof, that the circumpolar
+antarctic ice swarms with sea-serpents. I should not like to assert
+positively that it does not. I imagine that no cautious biologist
+would say as much; but while quite open to conviction, he might
+properly decline to waste time upon the consideration of talk, no
+better accredited than forecastle "yarns," about such monsters of the
+deep. And if the interests of ordinary veracity dictate this course,
+in relation to a matter of so little consequence as this, what must be
+our obligations in respect of the treatment of a question which is
+fundamental alike for science and for ethics? For not only does our
+general theory of the universe and of the nature of the order which
+pervades it, hang upon the answer; but the rules of practical life
+must be deeply affected by it.
+
+The belief in a demonic world is inculcated throughout the Gospels and
+the rest of the books of the New Testament; it pervades the whole
+patristic literature; it colours the theory and the practice of every
+Christian church down to modern times. Indeed, I doubt if, even now,
+there is any church which, officially, departs from such a fundamental
+doctrine of primitive Christianity as the existence, in addition to
+the Cosmos with which natural knowledge is conversant, of a world of
+spirits; that is to say, of intelligent agents, not subject to the
+physical or mental limitations of humanity, but nevertheless competent
+to interfere, to an undefined extent, with the ordinary course of both
+physical and mental phenomena.
+
+More especially is this conception fundamental for the authors of the
+Gospels. Without the belief that the present world, and particularly
+that part of it which is constituted by human society, has been given
+over, since the Fall, to the influence of wicked and malignant
+spiritual beings, governed and directed by a supreme devil--the moral
+antithesis and enemy of the supreme God--their theory of salvation by
+the Messiah falls to pieces. "To this end was the Son of God
+manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."[3]
+
+The half-hearted religiosity of latter-day Christianity may choose to
+ignore the fact; but it remains none the less true, that he who
+refuses to accept the demonology of the Gospels rejects the revelation
+of a spiritual world, made in them, as much as if he denied the
+existence of such a person as Jesus of Nazareth; and deserves, as much
+as any one can do, to be ear-marked "infidel" by our gentle shepherds.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now that which I thought it desirable to make perfectly clear, on my
+own account, and for the sake of those who find their capacity of
+belief in the Gospel theory of the universe failing them, is the fact,
+that, in my judgment, the demonology of primitive Christianity is
+totally devoid of foundation; and that no man, who is guided by the
+rules of investigation which are found to lead to the discovery of
+truth in other matters, not merely of science, but in the everyday
+affairs of life, will arrive at any other conclusion. To those who
+profess to be otherwise guided, I have nothing to say; but to beg them
+to go their own way and leave me to mine.
+
+I think it may be as well to repeat what I have said, over and over
+again, elsewhere, that _a priori_ notions, about the possibility, or
+the impossibility, of the existence of a world of spirits, such as
+that presupposed by genuine Christianity, have no influence on my
+mind. The question for me is purely one of evidence: is the evidence
+adequate to bear out the theory, or is it not? In my judgment it is
+not only inadequate, but quite absurdly insufficient. And on that
+ground, I should feel compelled to reject the theory; even if there
+were no positive grounds for adopting a totally different conception
+of the Cosmos.
+
+For most people, the question of the evidence of the existence of a
+demonic world, in the long run, resolves itself into that of the
+trustworthiness of the Gospels; first, as to the objective truth of
+that which they narrate on this topic; second, as to the accuracy of
+the interpretation which their authors put upon these objective facts.
+For example, with respect to the Gadarene miracle, it is one question
+whether, at a certain time and place, a raving madman became sane, and
+a herd of swine rushed into the lake of Tiberias; and quite another,
+whether the cause of these occurrences was the transmigration of
+certain devils from the man into the pigs. And again, it is one
+question whether Jesus made a long oration on a certain occasion,
+mentioned in the first Gospel; altogether another, whether more or
+fewer of the propositions contained in the "Sermon on the Mount" were
+uttered on that occasion. One may give an affirmative answer to one of
+each of these pairs of questions and a negative to the other: one may
+affirm all, or deny all.
+
+In considering the historical value of any four documents, proof when
+they were written and who wrote them is, no doubt, highly important.
+For if proof exists, that A B C and D wrote them, and that they were
+intelligent persons, writing independently and without prejudice,
+about facts within their own knowledge--their statements must needs be
+worthy of the most attentive consideration.[4] But, even
+ecclesiastical tradition does not assert that either "Mark" or "Luke"
+wrote from his own knowledge--indeed "Luke" expressly asserts he did
+not. I cannot discover that any competent authority now maintains that
+the apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel which passes under his name. And
+whether the apostle John had, or had not, anything to do with the
+fourth Gospel; and if he had, what his share amounted to; are, as
+everybody who has attended to these matters knows, questions still
+hotly disputed, and with regard to which the extant evidence can
+hardly carry an impartial judge beyond the admission of a possibility
+this way or that.
+
+Thus, nothing but a balancing of very dubious probabilities is to be
+attained by approaching the question from this side. It is otherwise
+if we make the documents tell their own story: if we study them, as we
+study fossils, to discover internal evidence, of when they arose, and
+how they have come to be. That really fruitful line of inquiry has led
+to the statement and the discussion of what is known as the _Synoptic
+Problem_.
+
+In the Essays (VII.--XI.) which deal with the consequences of the
+application of the agnostic principle to Christian Evidences,
+contained in this volume, there are several references to the results
+of the attempts which have been made, during the last hundred years,
+to solve this problem. And, though it has been clearly stated and
+discussed, in works accessible to, and intelligible by, every English
+reader,[5] it may be well that I should here set forth a very brief
+exposition of the matters of fact out of which the problem has arisen;
+and of some consequences, which, as I conceive, must be admitted if
+the facts are accepted.
+
+These undisputed and, apparently, indisputable data may be thus
+stated:
+
+I. The three books of which an ancient, but very questionable,
+ecclesiastical tradition asserts Matthew, Mark, and Luke to be the
+authors, agree, not only in presenting the same general view, or
+_Synopsis_, of the nature and the order of the events narrated; but,
+to a remarkable extent, the very words which they employ coincide.
+
+II. Nevertheless, there are many equally marked, and some
+irreconcilable, differences between them. Narratives, verbally
+identical in some portions, diverge more or less in others. The order
+in which they occur in one, or in two, Gospels may be changed in
+another. In "Matthew" and in "Luke" events of great importance make
+their appearance, where the story of "Mark" seems to leave no place
+for them; and, at the beginning and the end of the two former Gospels,
+there is a great amount of matter of which there is no trace in
+"Mark."
+
+III. Obvious and highly important differences, in style and substance,
+separate the three "Synoptics," taken together, from the fourth
+Gospel, connected, by ecclesiastical tradition, with the name of the
+apostle John. In its philosophical proemium; in the conspicuous
+absence of exorcistic miracles; in the self-assertive theosophy of the
+long and diffuse monologues, which are so utterly unlike the brief
+and pregnant utterances of Jesus recorded in the Synoptics; in the
+assertion that the crucifixion took place before the Passover, which
+involves the denial, by implication, of the truth of the Synoptic
+story--to mention only a few particulars--the "Johannine" Gospel
+presents a wide divergence from the other three.
+
+IV. If the mutual resemblances and differences of the Synoptic Gospels
+are closely considered, a curious result comes out; namely, that each
+may be analyzed into four components. The _first_ of these consists of
+passages, to a greater or less extent verbally identical, which occur
+in all three Gospels. If this triple tradition is separated from the
+rest it will be found to comprise:
+
+_a_. A narrative, of a somewhat broken and anecdotic aspect, which
+covers the period from the appearance of John the Baptist to the
+discovery of the emptiness of the tomb, on the first day of the week,
+some six-and-thirty hours after the crucifixion.
+
+_b_. An apocalyptic address.
+
+_c_. Parables and brief discourses, or rather, centos of religious and
+ethical exhortations and injunctions.
+
+The _second_ and the _third_ set of components of each Gospel present
+equally close resemblances to passages, which are found in only one of
+the other Gospels; therefore it may be said that, for them, the
+tradition is double. The _fourth_ component is peculiar to each
+Gospel; it is a single tradition and has no representative in the
+others.
+
+To put the facts in another way: each Gospel is composed of a
+_threefold tradition_, two _twofold traditions_, and one _peculiar
+tradition_. If the Gospels were the work of totally independent
+writers, it would follow that there are three witnesses for the
+statements in the first tradition; two for each of those in the
+second, and only one for those in the third.
+
+V. If the reader will now take up that extremely instructive little
+book, Abbott and Rushbrooke's "Common Tradition" he will easily
+satisfy himself that "Mark" has the remarkable structure just
+described. Almost the whole of this Gospel consists of the first
+component; namely, the _threefold tradition_. But in chap. i. 23-28 he
+will discover an exorcistic story, not to be found in "Matthew," but
+repeated, often word for word, in "Luke." This, therefore, belongs to
+one of the _twofold traditions_. In chap. viii. 1-10, on the other
+hand, there is a detailed account of the miracle of feeding the four
+thousand; which is closely repeated in "Matthew" xv. 32-39, but is not
+to be found in "Luke." This is an example of the other _twofold
+tradition_, possible in "Mark." Finally, the story of the blind man of
+Bethsaida, "Mark" viii. 22-26, is _peculiar_ to "Mark."
+
+VI. Suppose that, A standing for the _threefold tradition_, or the
+matter common to all three Gospels; we call the matter common to
+"Mark" and "Matthew" only--B; that common to "Mark" and "Luke"
+only--C; that common to "Matthew" and "Luke" only--D; while the
+peculiar components of "Mark," "Matthew," and "Luke" are severally
+indicated by E, F, G; then the structure of the Gospels may be
+represented thus:
+
+  Components of "Mark" = A + B + C + E.
+     "       "Matthew" = A + B + D + F.
+     "          "Luke" = A + C + D + G.
+
+VII. The analysis of the Synoptic documents need be carried no further
+than this point, in order to suggest one extremely important, and,
+apparently unavoidable conclusion; and that is, that their authors
+were neither three independent witnesses of the things narrated; nor,
+for the parts of the narrative about which all agree, that is to say,
+the _threefold tradition_, did they employ independent sources of
+information. It is simply incredible that each of three independent
+witnesses of any series of occurrences should tell a story so similar,
+not only in arrangement and in small details, but in words, to that of
+each of the others.
+
+Hence it follows, either that the Synoptic writers have, mediately or
+immediately, copied one from the other: or that the three have drawn
+from a common source; that is to say, from one arrangement of similar
+traditions (whether oral or written); though that arrangement may have
+been extant in three or more, somewhat different versions.
+
+VIII. The suppositions (_a_) that "Mark" had "Matthew" and "Luke"
+before him; and (_b_) that either of the two latter was acquainted
+with the work of the other, would seem to involve some singular
+consequences.
+
+_a_. The second Gospel is saturated with the lowest supernaturalism.
+Jesus is exhibited as a wonder-worker and exorcist of the first rank.
+The earliest public recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus comes from
+an "unclean spirit"; he himself is made to testify to the occurrence
+of the miraculous feeding twice over.
+
+The purpose with which "Mark" sets out is to show forth Jesus as the
+Son of God, and it is suggested, if not distinctly stated, that he
+acquired this character at his baptism by John. The absence of any
+reference to the miraculous events of the infancy, detailed by
+"Matthew" and "Luke;" or to the appearances after the discovery of the
+emptiness of the tomb; is unintelligible, if "Mark" knew anything
+about them, or believed in the miraculous conception. The second
+Gospel is no summary: "Mark" can find room for the detailed story,
+irrelevant to his main purpose, of the beheading of John the Baptist,
+and his miraculous narrations are crowded with minute particulars. Is
+it to be imagined that, with the supposed apostolic authority of
+Matthew before him, he could leave out the miraculous conception of
+Jesus and the ascension? Further, ecclesiastical tradition would have
+us believe that Mark wrote down his recollections of what Peter
+taught. Did Peter then omit to mention these matters? Did the fact
+testified by the oldest authority extant, that the first appearance of
+the risen Jesus was to himself seem not worth mentioning? Did he
+really fail to speak of the great position in the Church solemnly
+assigned to him by Jesus? The alternative would seem to be the
+impeachment either of Mark's memory, or of his judgment. But Mark's
+memory, is so good that he can recollect how, on the occasion of the
+stilling of the waves, Jesus was asleep "on the cushion," he remembers
+that the woman with the issue had "spent all she had" on her
+physicians; that there was not room "even about the door" on a certain
+occasion at Capernaum. And it is surely hard to believe that "Mark"
+should have failed to recollect occurrences of infinitely greater
+moment, or that he should have deliberately left them out, as things
+not worthy of mention.
+
+_b_. The supposition that "Matthew" was acquainted with "Luke," or
+"Luke" with "Matthew" has equally grave implications. If that be so,
+the one who used the other could have had but a poor opinion of his
+predecessor's historical veracity. If, as most experts agree, "Luke"
+is later than "Matthew," it is clear that he does not credit
+"Matthew's" account of the infancy; does not believe the "Sermon on
+the Mount" as given by Matthew was preached; does not believe in the
+two feeding miracles, to which Jesus himself is made to refer; wholly
+discredits "Matthew's" account of the events after the crucifixion;
+and thinks it not worth while to notice "Matthew's" grave admission
+that "some doubted."
+
+IX. None of these troublesome consequences pursue the hypothesis that
+the _threefold tradition_, in one, or more, Greek versions, was extant
+before either of the canonical Synoptic Gospels; and that it furnished
+the fundamental framework of their several narratives. Where and when
+the threefold narrative arose, there is no positive evidence; though
+it is obviously probable that the traditions it embodies, and perhaps
+many others, took their rise in Palestine and spread thence to Asia
+Minor, Greece, Egypt and Italy, in the track of the early
+missionaries. Nor is it less likely that they formed part of the
+"didaskalia" of the primitive Nazarene and Christian communities.[6]
+
+X. The interest which attaches to "Mark" arises from the fact that it
+seems to present this early, probably earliest, Greek Gospel
+narrative, with least addition, or modification. If, as appears likely
+from some internal evidences, it was compiled for the use of the
+Christian sodalities in Rome; and that it was accepted by them as an
+adequate account of the life and work of Jesus, it is evidence of the
+most valuable kind respecting their beliefs and the limits of dogma,
+as conceived by them.
+
+In such case, a good Roman Christian of that epoch might know nothing
+of the doctrine of the incarnation, as taught by "Matthew" and "Luke";
+still less of the "logos" doctrine of "John"; neither need he have
+believed anything more than the simple fact of the resurrection. It
+was open to him to believe it either corporeal or spiritual. He would
+never have heard of the power of the keys bestowed upon Peter; nor
+have had brought to his mind so much as a suggestion of trinitarian
+doctrine. He might be a rigidly monotheistic Judaeo-Christian, and
+consider himself bound by the law: he might be a Gentile Pauline
+convert, neither knowing of nor caring for such restrictions. In
+neither case would he find in "Mark" any serious stumbling-block. In
+fact, persons of all the categories admitted to salvation by Justin,
+in the middle of the second century,[7] could accept "Mark" from
+beginning to end. It may well be, that, in this wide adaptability,
+backed by the authority of the metropolitan church, there lies the
+reason for the fact of the preservation of "Mark," notwithstanding its
+limited and dogmatically colourless character, as compared with the
+Gospels of "Luke" and "Matthew."
+
+XI. "Mark," as we have seen, contains a relatively small body of
+ethical and religious instruction and only a few parables. Were these
+all that existed in the primitive threefold tradition? Were none
+others current in the Roman communities, at the time "Mark" wrote,
+supposing he wrote in Rome? Or, on the other hand, was there extant,
+as early as the time at which "Mark" composed his Greek edition of the
+primitive Evangel, one or more collections of parables and teachings,
+such as those which form the bulk of the twofold tradition, common
+exclusively to "Matthew" and "Luke," and are also found in their
+single traditions? Many have assumed this, or these, collections to be
+identical with, or at any rate based upon, the "logia," of which
+ecclesiastical tradition says, that they were written in Aramaic by
+Matthew, and that everybody translated them as he could.
+
+Here is the old difficulty again. If such materials were known to
+"Mark," what imaginable reason could he have for not using them?
+Surely displacement of the long episode of John the Baptist--even
+perhaps of the story of the Gadarene swine--by portions of the Sermon
+on the Mount or by one or two of the beautiful parables in the twofold
+and single traditions would have been great improvements; and might
+have been effected, even though "Mark" was as much pressed for space
+as some have imagined. But there is no ground for that imagination;
+Mark has actually found room for four or five parables; why should he
+not have given the best, if he had known of them? Admitting he was the
+mere _pedissequus et breviator_ of Matthew, that even Augustine
+supposed him to be, what could induce him to omit the Lord's Prayer?
+
+Whether more or less of the materials of the twofold tradition D, and
+of the peculiar traditions F and G, were or were not current in some
+of the communities, as early as, or perhaps earlier than, the triple
+tradition, it is not necessary for me to discuss; nor to consider
+those solutions of the Synoptic problem which assume that it existed
+earlier, and was already combined with more or less narrative. Those
+who are working out the final solution of the Synoptic problem are
+taking into account, more than hitherto, the possibility that the
+widely separated Christian communities of Palestine, Asia Minor,
+Egypt, and Italy, especially after the Jewish war of A.D. 66-70, may
+have found themselves in possession of very different traditional
+materials. Many circumstances tend to the conclusion that, in Asia
+Minor, even the narrative part of the threefold tradition had a
+formidable rival; and that, around this second narrative, teaching
+traditions of a totally different order from those in the Synoptics,
+grouped themselves; and, under the influence of converts imbued more
+or less with the philosophical speculations of the time, eventually
+took shape in the fourth Gospel and its associated literature.
+
+XII. But it is unnecessary, and it would be out of place, for me to
+attempt to do more than indicate the existence of these complex and
+difficult questions. My purpose has been to make it clear that the
+Synoptic problem must force itself upon every one who studies the
+Gospels with attention; that the broad facts of the case, and some of
+the consequences deducible from these facts, are just as plain to the
+simple English reader as they are to the profoundest scholar.
+
+One of these consequences is that the threefold tradition presents us
+with a narrative believed to be historically true, in all its
+particulars, by the major part, if not the whole, of the Christian
+communities. That narrative is penetrated, from beginning to end, by
+the demonological beliefs of which the Gadarene story is a specimen;
+and, if the fourth Gospel indicates the existence of another and, in
+some respects, irreconcilably divergent narrative, in which the
+demonology retires into the background, it is none the less there.
+
+Therefore, the demonology is an integral and inseparable component of
+primitive Christianity. The farther back the origin of the gospels is
+dated, the stronger does the certainty of this conclusion grow; and
+the more difficult it becomes to suppose that Jesus himself may not
+have shared the superstitious beliefs of his disciples.
+
+It further follows that those who accept devils, possession, and
+exorcism as essential elements of their conception of the spiritual
+world may consistently consider the testimony of the Gospels to be
+unimpeachable in respect of the information they give us respecting
+other matters which appertain to that world.
+
+Those who reject the gospel demonology, on the other hand, would seem
+to be as completely barred, as I feel myself to be, from professing to
+take the accuracy of that information for granted. If the threefold
+tradition is wrong about one fundamental topic, it may be wrong about
+another, while the authority of the single traditions, often mutually
+contradictory as they are, becomes a vanishing quantity.
+
+It really is unreasonable to ask any rejector of the demonology to say
+more with respect to those other matters, than that the statements
+regarding them may be true, or may be false; and that the ultimate
+decision, if it is to be favourable, must depend on the production of
+testimony of a very different character from that of the writers of
+the four gospels. Until such evidence is brought forward, that
+refusal of assent, with willingness to re-open the question, on cause
+shown, which is what I mean by Agnosticism, is, for me, the only
+course open.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A verdict of "not proven" is undoubtedly unsatisfactory and
+essentially provisional, so far forth as the subject of the trial is
+capable of being dealt with by due process of reason.
+
+Those who are of opinion that the historical realities at the root of
+Christianity, lie beyond the jurisdiction of science, need not be
+considered. Those who are convinced that the evidence is, and must
+always remain, insufficient to support any definite conclusion, are
+justified in ignoring the subject. They must be content to put up with
+that reproach of being mere destroyers, of which Strauss speaks. They
+may say that there are so many problems which are and must remain
+insoluble, that the "burden of the mystery" "of all this
+unintelligible world" is not appreciably affected by one more or less.
+
+For myself, I must confess that the problem of the origin of such very
+remarkable historical phenomena as the doctrines, and the social
+organization, which in their broad features certainly existed, and
+were in a state of rapid development, within a hundred years of the
+crucifixion of Jesus; and which have steadily prevailed against all
+rivals, among the most intelligent and civilized nations in the world
+ever since, is, and always has been, profoundly interesting; and,
+considering how recent the really scientific study of that problem,
+and how great the progress made during the last half century in
+supplying the conditions for a positive solution of the problem, I
+cannot doubt that the attainment of such a solution is a mere question
+of time.
+
+I am well aware that it has lain far beyond my powers to take any
+share in this great undertaking. All that I can hope is to have done
+somewhat towards "the preparation of those who have ceased to be
+contented with the old and find no satisfaction in half measures":
+perhaps, also, something towards the lessening of that great
+proportion of my countrymen, whose eminent characteristic it is that
+they find "full satisfaction in half measures."
+
+T.H.H.
+HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE,
+_December 4th, 1893_.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+      [1] D.F. Strauss, _Der alte und der neue Glaube_
+          (1872), pp. 9, 10.
+
+      [2] _Collected Essays_, vol. ii., "On the Origin of
+          Species" (1860).
+
+      [3] 1 John iii. 8.
+
+      [4] Not necessarily of more than this. A few centuries
+          ago the twelve most intelligent and impartial men to be
+          found in England, would have independently testified
+          that the sun moves, from east to west, across the
+          heavens every day.
+
+      [5] Nowhere more concisely and clearly than in Dr.
+          Sutherland Black's article "Gospels" in Chambers's
+          _Encyclopaedia_. References are given to the more
+          elaborate discussions of the problem.
+
+      [6] Those who regard the Apocalyptic discourse as a
+          "vaticination after the event" may draw conclusions
+          therefrom as to the date of the Gospels in which its
+          several forms occur. But the assumption is surely
+          dangerous, from an apologetic point of view, since it
+          begs the question as to the unhistorical character of
+          this solemn prophecy.
+
+      [7] See p. 287 of this volume.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                                      PAGE
+   I. PROLOGUE                                           1
+      (_Controverted Questions_, 1892).
+
+  II. SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM [1887]   59
+
+ III. SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE [1887]                 90
+
+  IV. AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY [1887]                      126
+
+   V. THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS [1889]    160
+
+  VI. POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES [1891]         192
+
+ VII. AGNOSTICISM [1889]                               209
+
+VIII. AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER [1889]                  263
+
+  IX. AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY [1889]              309
+
+   X. THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE [1890]          366
+
+  XI. ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL
+      METHODS [1891]                                   393
+
+
+
+
+I: PROLOGUE
+
+[_Controverted Questions_, 1892]
+
+Le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre a la science est d'y faire
+place nette avant d'y rien construire.--CUVIER.
+
+
+Most of the Essays comprised in the present volume have been written
+during the last six or seven years, without premeditated purpose or
+intentional connection, in reply to attacks upon doctrines which I
+hold to be well founded; or in refutation of allegations respecting
+matters lying within the province of natural knowledge, which I
+believe to be erroneous; and they bear the mark of their origin in the
+controversial tone which pervades them.
+
+Of polemical writing, as of other kinds of warfare, I think it may be
+said, that it is often useful, sometimes necessary, and always more or
+less of an evil. It is useful, when it attracts attention to topics
+which might otherwise be neglected; and when, as does sometimes
+happen, those who come to see a contest remain to think. It is
+necessary, when the interests of truth and of justice are at stake.
+It is an evil, in so far as controversy always tends to degenerate
+into quarrelling, to swerve from the great issue of what is right and
+what is wrong to the very small question of who is right and who is
+wrong. I venture to hope that the useful and the necessary were more
+conspicuous than the evil attributes of literary militancy, when these
+papers were first published; but I have had some hesitation about
+reprinting them. If I may judge by my own taste, few literary dishes
+are less appetising than cold controversy; moreover, there is an air
+of unfairness about the presentation of only one side of a discussion,
+and a flavour of unkindness in the reproduction of "winged words,"
+which, however appropriate at the time of their utterance, would find
+a still more appropriate place in oblivion. Yet, since I could hardly
+ask those who have honoured me by their polemical attentions to confer
+lustre on this collection, by permitting me to present their
+lucubrations along with my own; and since it would be a manifest wrong
+to them to deprive their, by no means rare, vivacities of language of
+such justification as they may derive from similar freedoms on my
+part; I came to the conclusion that my best course was to leave the
+essays just as they were written;[8] assuring my honourable
+adversaries that any heat of which signs may remain was generated, in
+accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, by the force of
+their own blows, and has long since been dissipated into space.
+
+But, however the polemical coincomitants of these discussions may be
+regarded--or better, disregarded--there is no doubt either about the
+importance of the topics of which they treat, or as to the public
+interest in the "Controverted Questions" with which they deal. Or
+rather, the Controverted Question; for disconnected as these pieces
+may, perhaps, appear to be, they are, in fact, concerned only with
+different aspects of a single problem, with which thinking men have
+been occupied, ever since they began seriously to consider the
+wonderful frame of things in which their lives are set, and to seek
+for trustworthy guidance among its intricacies.
+
+Experience speedily taught them that the shifting scenes of the
+world's stage have a permanent background; that there is order amidst
+the seeming confusion, and that many events take place according to
+unchanging rules. To this region of familiar steadiness and customary
+regularity they gave the name of Nature. But, at the same time, their
+infantile and untutored reason, little more, as yet, than the
+playfellow of the imagination, led them to believe that this tangible,
+commonplace, orderly world of Nature was surrounded and
+interpenetrated by another intangible and mysterious world, no more
+bound by fixed rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and
+passions which coursed through their minds and seemed to exercise an
+intermittent and capricious rule over their bodies. They attributed to
+the entities, with which they peopled this dim and dreadful region, an
+unlimited amount of that power of modifying the course of events of
+which they themselves possessed a small share, and thus came to regard
+them as not merely beyond, but above, Nature.
+
+Hence arose the conception of a "Supernature" antithetic to
+"Nature"--the primitive dualism of a natural world "fixed in fate" and
+a supernatural, left to the free play of volition--which has pervaded
+all later speculation and, for thousands of years, has exercised a
+profound influence on practice. For it is obvious that, on this theory
+of the Universe, the successful conduct of life must demand careful
+attention to both worlds; and, if either is to be neglected, it may be
+safer that it should be Nature. In any given contingency, it must
+doubtless be desirable to know what may be expected to happen in the
+ordinary course of things; but it must be quite as necessary to have
+some inkling of the line likely to be taken by supernatural agencies
+able, and possibly willing, to suspend or reverse that course. Indeed,
+logically developed, the dualistic theory must needs end in almost
+exclusive attention to Supernature, and in trust that its overruling
+strength will be exerted in favour of those who stand well with its
+denizens. On the other hand, the lessons of the great schoolmaster,
+experience, have hardly seemed to accord with this conclusion. They
+have taught, with considerable emphasis, that it does not answer to
+neglect Nature; and that, on the whole, the more attention paid to her
+dictates the better men fare.
+
+Thus the theoretical antithesis brought about a practical antagonism.
+From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, Naturalism and
+Supernaturalism have consciously, or unconsciously, competed and
+struggled with one another; and the varying fortunes of the contest
+are written in the records of the course of civilisation, from those
+of Egypt and Babylonia, six thousand years ago, down to those of our
+own time and people.
+
+These records inform us that, so far as men have paid attention to
+Nature, they have been rewarded for their pains. They have developed
+the Arts which have furnished the conditions of civilised existence;
+and the Sciences, which have been a progressive revelation of reality
+and have afforded the best discipline of the mind in the methods of
+discovering truth. They have accumulated a vast body of universally
+accepted knowledge; and the conceptions of man and of society, of
+morals and of law, based upon that knowledge, are every day more and
+more, either openly or tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of
+right action.
+
+History also tells us that the field of the supernatural has rewarded
+its cultivators with a harvest, perhaps not less luxuriant, but of a
+different character. It has produced an almost infinite diversity of
+Religions. These, if we set aside the ethical concomitants upon which
+natural knowledge also has a claim, are composed of information about
+Supernature; they tell us of the attributes of supernatural beings, of
+their relations with Nature, and of the operations by which their
+interference with the ordinary course of events can be secured or
+averted. It does not appear, however, that supernaturalists have
+attained to any agreement about these matters, or that history
+indicates a widening of the influence of supernaturalism on practice,
+with the onward flow of time. On the contrary, the various religions
+are, to a great extent, mutually exclusive; and their adherents
+delight in charging each other, not merely with error, but with
+criminality, deserving and ensuing punishment of infinite severity. In
+singular contrast with natural knowledge, again, the acquaintance of
+mankind with the supernatural appears the more extensive and the more
+exact, and the influence of supernatural doctrines upon conduct the
+greater, the further back we go in time and the lower the stage of
+civilisation submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there
+would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural
+knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in
+trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and
+questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of
+action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or
+vanished behind the screen of mere verbal recognition.
+
+Whether this difference of the fortunes of Naturalism and of
+Supernaturalism is an indication of the progress, or of the regress,
+of humanity; of a fall from, or an advance towards, the higher life;
+is a matter of opinion. The point to which I wish to direct attention
+is that the difference exists and is making itself felt. Men are
+growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the historical
+evolution of humanity, which is generally, and I venture to think not
+unreasonably, regarded as progress, has been, and is being,
+accompanied by a co-ordinate elimination of the supernatural from its
+originally large occupation of men's thoughts. The question--How far
+is this process to go?--is, in my apprehension, the Controverted
+Question of our time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Controversy on this matter--prolonged, bitter, and fought out with the
+weapons of the flesh, as well as with those of the spirit--is no new
+thing to Englishmen. We have been more or less occupied with it these
+five hundred years. And, during that time, we have made attempts to
+establish a _modus vivendi_ between the antagonists, some of which
+have had a world-wide influence; though, unfortunately, none have
+proved universally and permanently satisfactory.
+
+In the fourteenth century, the controverted question among us was,
+whether certain portions of the Supernaturalism of mediaeval
+Christianity were well-founded. John Wicliff proposed a solution of
+the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years,
+acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards,
+Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and
+Anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal
+to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits
+sanctioned by the Scriptures. None of the chiefs of Protestantism
+called in question either the supernatural origin and infallible
+authority of the Bible, or the exactitude of the account of the
+supernatural world given in its pages. In fact, they could not afford
+to entertain any doubt about these points, since the infallible Bible
+was the fulcrum of the lever with which they were endeavouring to
+upset the Chair of St. Peter. The "freedom of private judgment" which
+they proclaimed, meant no more, in practice, than permission to
+themselves to make free with the public judgment of the Roman Church,
+in respect of the canon and of the meaning to be attached to the words
+of the canonical books. Private judgment--that is to say, reason--was
+(theoretically, at any rate) at liberty to decide what books were and
+what were not to take the rank of "Scripture"; and to determine the
+sense of any passage in such books. But this sense, once ascertained
+to the mind of the sectary, was to be taken for pure truth--for the
+very word of God. The controversial efficiency of the principle of
+biblical infallibility lay in the fact that the conservative
+adversaries of the Reformers were not in a position to contravene it
+without entangling themselves in serious difficulties; while, since
+both Papists and Protestants agreed in taking efficient measures to
+stop the mouths of any more radical critics, these did not count.
+
+The impotence of their adversaries, however, did not remove the
+inherent weakness of the position of the Protestants. The dogma of the
+infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the
+infallibility of the Pope. If the former is held by "faith," then the
+latter may be. If the latter is to be accepted, or rejected, by
+private judgment, why not the former? Even if the Bible could be
+proved anywhere to assert its own infallibility, the value of that
+self-assertion to those who dispute the point is not obvious. On the
+other hand, if the infallibility of the Bible was rested on that of a
+"primitive Church," the admission that the "Church" was formerly
+infallible was awkward in the extreme for those who denied its present
+infallibility. Moreover, no sooner was the Protestant principle
+applied to practice, than it became evident that even an infallible
+text, when manipulated by private judgment, will impartially
+countenance contradictory deductions; and furnish forth creeds and
+confessions as diverse as the quality and the information of the
+intellects which exercise, and the prejudices and passions which sway,
+such judgments. Every sect, confident in the derivative infallibility
+of its wire-drawing of infallible materials, was ready to supply its
+contingent of martyrs; and to enable history, once more, to illustrate
+the truth, that steadfastness under persecution says much for the
+sincerity and still more for the tenacity, of the believer, but very
+little for the objective truth of that which he believes. No martyrs
+have sealed their faith with their blood more steadfastly than the
+Anabaptists.
+
+Last, but not least, the Protestant principle contained within itself
+the germs of the destruction of the finality, which the Lutheran,
+Calvinistic, and other Protestant Churches fondly imagined they had
+reached. Since their creeds were professedly based on the canonical
+Scriptures, it followed that, in the long run, whoso settled the
+canon defined the creed. If the private judgment of Luther might
+legitimately conclude that the epistle of James was contemptible,
+while the epistles of Paul contained the very essence of Christianity,
+it must be permissible for some other private judgment, on as good or
+as bad grounds, to reverse these conclusions; the critical process
+which excluded the Apocrypha could not be barred, at any rate by
+people who rejected the authority of the Church, from extending its
+operations to Daniel, the Canticles, and Ecclesiastes; nor, having got
+so far, was it easy to allege any good ground for staying the further
+progress of criticism. In fact, the logical development of
+Protestantism could not fail to lay the authority of the Scriptures at
+the feet of Reason; and, in the hands of latitudinarian and
+rationalistic theologians, the despotism of the Bible was rapidly
+converted into an extremely limited monarchy. Treated with as much
+respect as ever, the sphere of its practical authority was minimised;
+and its decrees were valid only so far as they were countersigned by
+common sense, the responsible minister.
+
+The champions of Protestantism are much given to glorify the
+Reformation of the sixteenth century as the emancipation of Reason;
+but it may be doubted if their contention has any solid ground; while
+there is a good deal of evidence to show, that aspirations after
+intellectual freedom had nothing whatever to do with the movement.
+Dante, who struck the Papacy as hard blows as Wicliff; Wicliff himself
+and Luther himself, when they began their work; were far enough from
+any intention of meddling with even the most irrational of the dogmas
+of mediaeval Supernaturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to
+Muenzer, Rothmann, and John of Leyden, I fail to find a trace of any
+desire to set reason free. The most that can be discovered is a
+proposal to change masters. From being the slave of the Papacy the
+intellect was to become the serf of the Bible; or, to speak more
+accurately, of somebody's interpretation of the Bible, which, rapidly
+shifting its attitude from the humility of a private judgment to the
+arrogant Caesaro-papistry of a state-enforced creed, had no more
+hesitation about forcibly extinguishing opponent private judgments and
+judges, than had the old-fashioned Pontiff-papistry.
+
+It was the iniquities, and not the irrationalities, of the Papal
+system that lay at the bottom of the revolt of the laity; which was,
+essentially, an attempt to shake off the intolerable burden of certain
+practical deductions from a Supernaturalism in which everybody, in
+principle, acquiesced. What was the gain to intellectual freedom of
+abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, indulgences,
+ecclesiastical infallibility; if consubstantiation, real-unreal
+presence mystifications, the bibliolatry, the "inner-light"
+pretensions, and the demonology, which are fruits of the same
+supernaturalistic tree, remained in enjoyment of the spiritual and
+temporal support of a new infallibility? One does not free a prisoner
+by merely scraping away the rust from his shackles.
+
+It will be asked, perhaps, was not the Reformation one of the products
+of that great outbreak of many-sided free mental activity included
+under the general head of the Renascence? Melanchthon, Ulrich von
+Hutten, Beza, were they not all humanists? Was not the arch-humanist,
+Erasmus, fautor-in-chief of the Reformation, until he got frightened
+and basely deserted it?
+
+From the language of Protestant historians, it would seem that they
+often forget that Reformation and Protestantism are by no means
+convertible terms. There were plenty of sincere and indeed zealous
+reformers, before, during, and after the birth and growth of
+Protestantism, who would have nothing to do with it. Assuredly, the
+rejuvenescence of science and of art; the widening of the field of
+Nature by geographical and astronomical discovery; the revelation of
+the noble ideals of antique literature by the revival of classical
+learning; the stir of thought, throughout all classes of society, by
+the printers' work, loosened traditional bonds and weakened the hold
+of mediaeval Supernaturalism. In the interests of liberal culture and
+of national welfare, the humanists were eager to lend a hand to
+anything which tended to the discomfiture of their sworn enemies, the
+monks, and they willingly supported every movement in the direction of
+weakening ecclesiastical interference with civil life. But the bond of
+a common enemy was the only real tie between the humanist and the
+protestant; their alliance was bound to be of short duration, and,
+sooner or later, to be replaced by internecine warfare. The goal of
+the humanists, whether they were aware of it or not, was the
+attainment of the complete intellectual freedom of the antique
+philosopher, than which nothing could be more abhorrent to a Luther, a
+Calvin, a Beza, or a Zwingli.
+
+The key to the comprehension of the conduct of Erasmus, seems to me to
+lie in the clear apprehension of this fact. That he was a man of many
+weaknesses may be true; in fact, he was quite aware of them and
+professed himself no hero. But he never deserted that reformatory
+movement which he originally contemplated; and it was impossible he
+should have deserted the specifically Protestant reformation in which
+he never took part. He was essentially a theological whig, to whom
+radicalism was as hateful as it is to all whigs; or, to borrow a still
+more appropriate comparison from modern times, a broad churchman who
+refused to enlist with either the High Church or the Low Church
+zealots, and paid the penalty of being called coward, time-server and
+traitor, by both. Yet really there is a good deal in his pathetic
+remonstrance that he does not see why he is bound to become a martyr
+for that in which he does not believe; and a fair consideration of the
+circumstances and the consequences of the Protestant reformation seems
+to me to go a long way towards justifying the course he adopted.
+
+Few men had better means of being acquainted with the condition of
+Europe; none could be more competent to gauge the intellectual
+shallowness and self-contradiction of the Protestant criticism of
+Catholic doctrine; and to estimate, at its proper value, the fond
+imagination that the waters let out by the Renascence would come to
+rest amidst the blind alleys of the new ecclesiasticism. The bastard,
+whilom poor student and monk, become the familiar of bishops and
+princes, at home in all grades of society, could not fail to be aware
+of the gravity of the social position, of the dangers imminent from
+the profligacy and indifference of the ruling classes, no less than
+from the anarchical tendencies of the people who groaned under their
+oppression. The wanderer who had lived in Germany, in France, in
+England, in Italy, and who counted many of the best and most
+influential men in each country among his friends, was not likely to
+estimate wrongly the enormous forces which were still at the command
+of the Papacy. Bad as the churchmen might be, the statesmen were
+worse; and a person of far more sanguine temperament than Erasmus
+might have seen no hope for the future, except in gradually freeing
+the ubiquitous organisation of the Church from the corruptions which
+alone, as he imagined, prevented it from being as beneficent as it was
+powerful. The broad tolerance of the scholar and man of the world
+might well be revolted by the ruffianism, however genial, of one great
+light of Protestantism, and the narrow fanaticism, however learned and
+logical, of others; and to a cautious thinker, by whom, whatever his
+shortcomings, the ethical ideal of the Christian evangel was sincerely
+prized, it really was a fair question, whether it was worth while to
+bring about a political and social deluge, the end of which no mortal
+could foresee, for the purpose of setting up Lutheran, Zwinglian, and
+other Peterkins, in the place of the actual claimant to the reversion
+of the spiritual wealth of the Galilean fisherman.
+
+Let us suppose that, at the beginning of the Lutheran and Zwinglian
+movement, a vision of its immediate consequences had been granted to
+Erasmus; imagine that to the spectre of the fierce outbreak of
+Anabaptist communism, which opened the apocalypse, had succeeded, in
+shadowy procession, the reign of terror and of spoliation in England,
+with the judicial murders of his friends, More and Fisher; the bitter
+tyranny of evangelistic clericalism in Geneva and in Scotland; the
+long agony of religious wars, persecutions, and massacres, which
+devastated France and reduced Germany almost to savagery; finishing
+with the spectacle of Lutheranism in its native country sunk into mere
+dead Erastian formalism, before it was a century old; while Jesuitry
+triumphed over Protestantism in three-fourths of Europe, bringing in
+its train a recrudescence of all the corruptions Erasmus and his
+friends sought to abolish; might not he have quite honestly thought
+this a somewhat too heavy price to pay for Protestantism; more
+especially, since no one was in a better position than himself to know
+how little the dogmatic foundation of the new confessions was able to
+bear the light which the inevitable progress of humanistic criticism
+would throw upon them? As the wiser of his contemporaries saw, Erasmus
+was, at heart, neither Protestant nor Papist, but an "Independent
+Christian"; and, as the wiser of his modern biographers have
+discerned, he was the precursor, not of sixteenth century reform, but
+of eighteenth century "enlightenment"; a sort of broad-church
+Voltaire, who held by his "Independent Christianity" as stoutly as
+Voltaire by his Deism.
+
+In fact, the stream of the Renascence, which bore Erasmus along, left
+Protestantism stranded amidst the mudbanks of its articles and creeds:
+while its true course became visible to all men, two centuries later.
+By this time, those in whom the movement of the Renascence was
+incarnate became aware what spirit they were of; and they attacked
+Supernaturalism in its Biblical stronghold, defended by Protestants
+and Romanists with equal zeal. In the eyes of the "Patriarch,"
+Ultramontanism, Jansenism, and Calvinism were merely three persons of
+the one "Infame" which it was the object of his life to crush. If he
+hated one more than another, it was probably the last; while
+D'Holbach, and the extreme left of the free-thinking host, were
+disposed to show no more mercy to Deism and Pantheism.
+
+The sceptical insurrection of the eighteenth century made a terrific
+noise and frightened not a few worthy people out of their wits; but
+cool judges might have foreseen, at the outset, that the efforts of
+the later rebels were no more likely than those of the earlier, to
+furnish permanent resting-places for the spirit of scientific inquiry.
+However worthy of admiration may be the acuteness, the common sense,
+the wit, the broad humanity, which abound in the writings of the best
+of the free-thinkers; there is rarely much to be said for their work
+as an example of the adequate treatment of a grave and difficult
+investigation. I do not think any impartial judge will assert that,
+from this point of view, they are much better than their adversaries.
+It must be admitted that they share to the full the fatal weakness of
+_a priori_ philosophising, no less than the moral frivolity common to
+their age; while a singular want of appreciation of history, as the
+record of the moral and social evolution of the human race, permitted
+them to resort to preposterous theories of imposture, in order to
+account for the religious phenomena which are natural products of that
+evolution.
+
+For the most part, the Romanist and Protestant adversaries of the
+free-thinkers met them with arguments no better than their own; and
+with vituperation, so far inferior that it lacked the wit. But one
+great Christian Apologist fairly captured the guns of the
+free-thinking array, and turned their batteries upon themselves.
+Speculative "infidelity" of the eighteenth century type was mortally
+wounded by the _Analogy_; while the progress of the historical and
+psychological sciences brought to light the important part played by
+the mythopoeic faculty; and, by demonstrating the extreme readiness of
+men to impose upon themselves, rendered the calling in of sacerdotal
+cooperation, in most cases, a superfluity.
+
+Again, as in the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries, social and
+political influences came into play. The free-thinking _philosophes_,
+who objected to Rousseau's sentimental religiosity almost as much as
+they did to _L'Infame_, were credited with the responsibility for all
+the evil deeds of Rousseau's Jacobin disciples, with about as much
+justification as Wicliff was held responsible for the Peasants'
+revolt, or Luther for the _Bauern-krieg_. In England, though our
+_ancien regime_ was not altogether lovely, the social edifice was
+never in such a bad way as in France; it was still capable of being
+repaired; and our forefathers, very wisely, preferred to wait until
+that operation could be safely performed, rather than pull it all down
+about their ears, in order to build a philosophically planned house on
+brand-new speculative foundations. Under these circumstances, it is
+not wonderful that, in this country, practical men preferred the
+gospel of Wesley and Whitfield to that of Jean Jacques; while enough
+of the old leaven of Puritanism remained to ensure the favour and
+support of a large number of religious men to a revival of evangelical
+supernaturalism. Thus, by degrees, the free-thinking, or the
+indifference, prevalent among us in the first half of the eighteenth
+century, was replaced by a strong supernaturalistic reaction, which
+submerged the work of the free-thinkers; and even seemed, for a time,
+to have arrested the naturalistic movement of which that work was an
+imperfect indication. Yet, like Lollardry, four centuries earlier,
+free-thought merely took to running underground, safe, sooner or
+later, to return to the surface.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My memory, unfortunately, carries me back to the fourth decade of the
+nineteenth century, when the evangelical flood had a little abated and
+the tops of certain mountains were soon to appear, chiefly in the
+neighbourhood of Oxford; but when nevertheless, bibliolatry was
+rampant; when church and chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of
+God, the crude assumptions of the worst informed and, in natural
+sequence, the most presumptuously bigoted, of all theological schools.
+
+In accordance with promises made on my behalf, but certainly without
+my authorisation, I was very early taken to hear "sermons in the
+vulgar tongue." And vulgar enough often was the tongue in which some
+preacher, ignorant alike of literature, of history, of science, and
+even of theology, outside that patronised by his own narrow school,
+poured forth, from the safe entrenchment of the pulpit, invectives
+against those who deviated from his notion of orthodoxy. From dark
+allusions to "sceptics" and "infidels," I became aware of the
+existence of people who trusted in carnal reason; who audaciously
+doubted that the world was made in six natural days, or that the
+deluge was universal; perhaps even went so far as to question the
+literal accuracy of the story of Eve's temptation, or of Balaam's ass;
+and, from the horror of the tones in which they were mentioned, I
+should have been justified in drawing the conclusion that these rash
+men belonged to the criminal classes. At the same time, those who were
+more directly responsible for providing me with the knowledge
+essential to the right guidance of life (and who sincerely desired to
+do so), imagined they were discharging that most sacred duty by
+impressing upon my childish mind the necessity, on pain of reprobation
+in this world and damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict
+and literal sense, every statement contained in the Protestant Bible.
+I was told to believe, and I did believe, that doubt about any of them
+was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. I suppose that,
+out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred, at least, had
+their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the name of the God
+of truth, by like discipline. I am sure that, even a score of years
+later, those who ventured to question the exact historical accuracy of
+any part of the Old Testament and _a fortiori_ of the Gospels, had to
+expect a pitiless shower of verbal missiles, to say nothing of the
+other disagreeable consequences which visit those who, in any way, run
+counter to that chaos of prejudices called public opinion.
+
+My recollections of this time have recently been revived by the
+perusal of a remarkable document,[9] signed by as many as thirty-eight
+out of the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the Established Church. It
+does not appear that the signataries are officially accredited
+spokesmen of the ecclesiastical corporation to which they belong; but
+I feel bound to take their word for it, that they are "stewards of the
+Lord, who have received the Holy Ghost," and, therefore, to accept
+this memorial as evidence that, though the Evangelicism of my early
+days may be deposed from its place of power, though so many of the
+colleagues of the thirty-eight even repudiate the title of
+Protestants, yet the green bay tree of bibliolatry flourishes as it
+did sixty years ago. And, as in those good old times, whoso refuses to
+offer incense to the idol is held to be guilty of "a dishonour to
+God," imperilling his salvation.
+
+It is to the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that they
+discern the real nature of the Controverted Question of the age. They
+are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if Scripture has been
+discovered "not to be worthy of unquestioning belief," faith "in the
+supernatural itself" is, so far, undermined. And I may congratulate
+myself upon such weighty confirmation of an opinion in which I have
+had the fortune to anticipate them. But whether it is more to the
+credit of the courage, than to the intelligence, of the thirty-eight
+that they should go on to proclaim that the canonical scriptures of
+the Old and New Testaments "declare incontrovertibly the actual
+historical truth in all records, both of past events and of the
+delivery of predictions to be thereafter fulfilled," must be left to
+the coming generation to decide.
+
+The interest which attaches to this singular document will, I think,
+be based by most thinking men, not upon what it is, but upon that of
+which it is a sign. It is an open secret, that the memorial is put
+forth as a counterblast to a manifestation of opinion of a contrary
+character, on the part of certain members of the same ecclesiastical
+body, who therefore have, as I suppose, an equal right to declare
+themselves "stewards of the Lord and recipients of the Holy Ghost." In
+fact, the stream of tendency towards Naturalism, the course of which I
+have briefly traced, has, of late years, flowed so strongly, that even
+the Churches have begun, I dare not say to drift, but, at any rate, to
+swing at their moorings. Within the pale of the Anglican
+establishment, I venture to doubt, whether, at this moment, there are
+as many thorough-going defenders of "plenary inspiration" as there
+were timid questioners of that doctrine, half a century ago.
+Commentaries, sanctioned by the highest authority, give up the "actual
+historical truth" of the cosmogonical and diluvial narratives.
+University professors of deservedly high repute accept the critical
+decision that the Hexateuch is a compilation, in which the share of
+Moses, either as author or as editor, is not quite so clearly
+demonstrable as it might be; highly placed Divines tell us that the
+pre-Abrahamic Scripture narratives may be ignored; that the book of
+Daniel may be regarded as a patriotic romance of the second century
+B.C.; that the words of the writer of the fourth Gospel are not always
+to be distinguished from those which he puts into the mouth of Jesus.
+Conservative, but conscientious, revisers decide that whole passages,
+some of dogmatic and some of ethical importance, are interpolations.
+An uneasy sense of the weakness of the dogma of Biblical infallibility
+seems to be at the bottom of a prevailing tendency once more to
+substitute the authority of the "Church" for that of the Bible. In my
+old age, it has happened to me to be taken to task for regarding
+Christianity as a "religion of a book" as gravely as, in my youth, I
+should have been reprehended for doubting that proposition. It is a no
+less interesting symptom that the State Church seems more and more
+anxious to repudiate all complicity with the principles of the
+Protestant Reformation and to call itself "Anglo-Catholic."
+Inspiration, deprived of its old intelligible sense, is watered down
+into a mystification. The Scriptures are, indeed, inspired; but they
+contain a wholly undefined and indefinable "human element"; and this
+unfortunate intruder is converted into a sort of biblical whipping
+boy. Whatsoever scientific investigation, historical or physical,
+proves to be erroneous, the "human element" bears the blame; while the
+divine inspiration of such statements, as by their nature are out of
+reach of proof or disproof, is still asserted with all the vigour
+inspired by conscious safety from attack. Though the proposal to treat
+the Bible "like any other book" which caused so much scandal, forty
+years ago, may not yet be generally accepted, and though Bishop
+Colenso's criticisms may still lie, formally, under ecclesiastical
+ban, yet the Church has not wholly turned a deaf ear to the voice of
+the scientific tempter; and many a coy divine, while "crying I will
+ne'er consent," has consented to the proposals of that scientific
+criticism which the memorialists renounce and denounce.
+
+A humble layman, to whom it would seem the height of presumption to
+assume even the unconsidered dignity of a "steward of science," may
+well find this conflict of apparently equal ecclesiastical authorities
+perplexing--suggestive, indeed, of the wisdom of postponing attention
+to either, until the question of precedence between them is settled.
+And this course will probably appear the more advisable, the more
+closely the fundamental position of the memorialists is examined.
+
+"No opinion of the fact or form of Divine Revelation, founded on
+literary criticism [and I suppose I may add historical, or physical,
+criticism] of the Scriptures themselves, can be admitted to interfere
+with the traditionary testimony of the Church, when that has been once
+ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity."[10]
+
+Grant that it is "the traditionary testimony of the Church" which
+guarantees the canonicity of each and all of the books of the Old and
+New Testaments. Grant also that canonicity means infallibility; yet,
+according to the thirty-eight, this "traditionary testimony" has to be
+"ascertained and verified by appeal to antiquity." But "ascertainment
+and verification" are purely intellectual processes, which must be
+conducted according to the strict rules of scientific investigation,
+or be self-convicted of worthlessness. Moreover, before we can set
+about the appeal to "antiquity," the exact sense of that usefully
+vague term must be defined by similar means. "Antiquity" may include
+any number of centuries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is to
+comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a little beyond that of
+Nicaea, or to come to an end in the time of Irenaenus, or in that of
+Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at all,
+only by those critical methods which the signataries treat so
+cavalierly. And yet the decision of these questions is fundamental,
+for as the limits of the canonical scriptures vary, so may the dogmas
+deduced from them require modification. Christianity is one thing, if
+the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the pastoral Epistles,
+and the Apocalypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) infallibly
+true; and another thing, if they are not. As I have already said,
+whoso defines the canon defines the creed.
+
+Now it is quite certain with respect to some of these books, such as
+the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the Eastern and
+the Western Church differed in opinion for centuries; and yet neither
+the one branch nor the other can have considered its judgment
+infallible, since they eventually agreed to a transaction by which
+each gave up its objection to the book patronised by the other.
+Moreover, the "fathers" argue (in a more or less rational manner)
+about the canonicity of this or that book, and are by no means above
+producing evidence, internal and external, in favour of the opinions
+they advocate. In fact, imperfect as their conceptions of scientific
+method may be, they not unfrequently used it to the best of their
+ability. Thus it would appear that though science, like Nature, may be
+driven out with a fork, ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes
+back again. The appeal to "antiquity" is, in fact, an appeal to
+science, first to define what antiquity is; secondly, to determine
+what "antiquity," so defined, says about canonicity; thirdly, to prove
+that canonicity means infallibility. And when science, largely in the
+shape of the abhorred "criticism," has answered this appeal, and has
+shown that "antiquity" used her own methods, however clumsily and
+imperfectly, she naturally turns round upon the appellants, and
+demands that they should show cause why, in these days, science
+should not resume the work the ancients did so imperfectly, and carry
+it out efficiently.
+
+But no such cause can be shown. If "antiquity" permitted Eusebius,
+Origen, Tertullian, Irenaeus, to argue for the reception of this book
+into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational grounds,
+"antiquity" admitted the whole principle of modern criticism. If
+Irenaeus produces ridiculous reasons for limiting the Gospels to four,
+it was open to any one else to produce good reasons (if he had them)
+for cutting them down to three, or increasing them to five. If the
+Eastern branch of the Church had a right to reject the Apocalypse and
+accept the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Western an equal right to
+accept the Apocalypse and reject the Epistle, down to the fourth
+century, any other branch would have an equal right, on cause shown,
+to reject both, or, as the Catholic Church afterwards actually did, to
+accept both.
+
+Thus I cannot but think that the thirty-eight are hoist with their own
+petard. Their "appeal to antiquity" turns out to be nothing but a
+round-about way of appealing to the tribunal, the jurisdiction of
+which they affect to deny. Having rested the world of Christian
+supernaturalism on the elephant of biblical infallibility, and
+furnished the elephant with standing ground on the tortoise of
+"antiquity," they, like their famous Hindoo analogue, have been
+content to look no further; and have thereby been spared the horror of
+discovering that the tortoise rests on a grievously fragile
+construction, to a great extent the work of that very intellectual
+operation which they anathematise and repudiate.
+
+Moreover, there is another point to be considered. It is of course
+true that a Christian Church (whether the Christian Church, or not,
+depends on the connotation of the definite article) existed before the
+Christian scriptures; and that the infallibility of these depends upon
+the infallibility of the judgment of the persons who selected the
+books of which they are composed, out of the mass of literature
+current among the early Christians. The logical acumen of Augustine
+showed him that the authority of the Gospel he preached must rest on
+that of the Church to which he belonged.[11] But it is no less true
+that the Hebrew and the Septuagint versions of most, if not all, of
+the Old Testament books existed before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth;
+and that their divine authority is presupposed by, and therefore can
+hardly depend upon, the religious body constituted by his disciples.
+As everybody knows, the very conception of a "Christ" is purely
+Jewish. The validity of the argument from the Messianic prophecies
+vanishes unless their infallible authority is granted; and, as a
+matter of fact, whether we turn to the Gospels, the Epistles, or the
+writings of the early Apologists, the Jewish scriptures are recognised
+as the highest court of appeal of the Christian.
+
+The proposal to cite Christian "antiquity" as a witness to the
+infallibility of the Old Testament, when its own claims to authority
+vanish, if certain propositions contained in the Old Testament are
+erroneous, hardly satisfies the requirements of lay logic. It is as if
+a claimant to be sole legatee, under another kind of testament, should
+offer his assertion as sufficient evidence of the validity of the
+will. And, even were not such a circular, or rather rotatory,
+argument, that the infallibility of the Bible is testified by the
+infallible Church, whose infallibility is testified by the infallible
+Bible, too absurd for serious consideration, it remains permissible to
+ask, Where and when the Church, during the period of its
+infallibility, as limited by Anglican dogmatic necessities, has
+officially decreed the "actual historical truth of all records" in the
+Old Testament? Was Augustine heretical when he denied the actual
+historical truth of the record of the Creation? Father Suarez,
+standing on later Roman tradition, may have a right to declare that he
+was; but it does not lie in the mouth of those who limit their appeal
+to that early "antiquity," in which Augustine played so great a part,
+to say so.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the watchers of the course of the world of thought, some view
+with delight and some with horror, the recrudescence of
+Supernaturalism which manifests itself among us, in shapes ranged
+along the whole flight of steps, which, in this case, separates the
+sublime from the ridiculous--from Neo-Catholicism and Inner-light
+mysticism, at the top, to unclean things, not worthy of mention in the
+same breath, at the bottom. In my poor opinion, the importance of
+these manifestations is often greatly over-estimated. The extant forms
+of Supernaturalism have deep roots in human nature, and will
+undoubtedly die hard; but, in these latter days, they have to cope
+with an enemy whose full strength is only just beginning to be put
+out, and whose forces, gathering strength year by year, are hemming
+them round on every side. This enemy is Science, in the acceptation of
+systematized natural knowledge, which, during the last two centuries,
+has extended those methods of investigation, the worth of which is
+confirmed by daily appeal to Nature, to every region in which the
+Supernatural has hitherto been recognised.
+
+When scientific historical criticism reduced the annals of heroic
+Greece and of regal Rome to the level of fables; when the unity of
+authorship of the _Iliad_ was successfully assailed by scientific
+literary criticism; when scientific physical criticism, after
+exploding the geocentric theory of the universe and reducing the solar
+system itself to one of millions of groups of like cosmic specks,
+circling, at unimaginable distances from one another through infinite
+space, showed the supernaturalistic theories of the duration of the
+earth and of life upon it, to be as inadequate as those of its
+relative dimensions and importance had been; it needed no prophetic
+gift to see that, sooner or later, the Jewish and the early Christian
+records would be treated in the same manner; that the authorship of
+the Hexateuch and of the Gospels would be as severely tested; and that
+the evidence in favour of the veracity of many of the statements found
+in the Scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be
+opposed to the conclusions of physical science. In point of fact, so
+far as I can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential
+strength of these conclusions, ventures now to say that the biblical
+accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural
+sense of the words of the narratives. The most modern Reconcilers
+venture upon is to affirm, that some quite different sense may he put
+upon the words; and that this non-natural sense may, with a little
+trouble, be manipulated into some sort of noncontradiction of
+scientific truth.
+
+My purpose, in the essay (XVI.) which treats of the narrative of the
+Deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such event as
+that described ever took place; to exhibit the untrustworthy character
+of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism; and, finally, to
+account for its origin, by producing a form of those ancient legends
+of pagan Chaldaea, from which the biblical compilation is manifestly
+derived. I have yet to learn that the main propositions of this essay
+can be seriously challenged.
+
+In the essays (II., III.) on the narrative of the Creation, I have
+endeavoured to controvert the assertion that modern science supports,
+either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or any
+interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the
+narrative, quite apart from particular details. The first chapter of
+Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of
+life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution.
+The first chapter of Genesis teaches the successive origin--firstly,
+of all the plants, secondly, of all the aquatic and aerial animals,
+thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals, which now exist--during
+distinct intervals of time; modern science teaches that, throughout
+all the duration of an immensely long past so far as we have any
+adequate knowledge of it (that is as far back as the Silurian epoch),
+plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals have co-existed; that
+the earliest known are unlike those which at present exist; and that
+the modern species have come into existence as the last terms of a
+series, the members of which have appeared one after another. Thus,
+far from confirming the account in Genesis, the results of modern
+science, so far as they go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly
+discordant with it.
+
+Yet, if the pretensions to infallibility set up, not by the ancient
+Hebrew writings themselves, but by the ecclesiastical champions and
+friends from whom they may well pray to be delivered, thus shatter
+themselves against the rock of natural knowledge, in respect of the
+two most important of all events, the origin of things and the
+palingenesis of terrestrial life, what historical credit dare any
+serious thinker attach to the narratives of the fabrication of Eve, of
+the Fall, of the commerce between the _Bene Elohim_ and the daughters
+of men, which lie between the creational and the diluvial legends?
+And, if these are to lose all historical worth, what becomes of the
+infallibility of those who, according to the later scriptures, have
+accepted them, argued from them, and staked far-reaching dogmatic
+conclusions upon their historical accuracy?
+
+It is the merest ostrich policy for contemporary ecclesiasticism to
+try to hide its Hexateuchal head--in the hope that the inseparable
+connection of its body with pre-Abrahamic legends may be overlooked.
+The question will still be asked, if the first nine chapters of the
+Pentateuch are unhistorical, how is the historical accuracy of the
+remainder to be guaranteed? What more intrinsic claim has the story of
+the Exodus than that of the Deluge, to belief? If God did not walk in
+the Garden of Eden, how can we be assured that he spoke from Sinai?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In some other of the following essays (IX., X., XI., XII., XIV., XV.)
+I have endeavoured to show that sober and well-founded physical and
+literary criticism plays no less havoc with the doctrine that the
+canonical scriptures of the New Testament "declare incontrovertibly
+the actual historical truth in all records." We are told that the
+Gospels contain a true revelation of the spiritual world--a
+proposition which, in one sense of the word "spiritual," I should not
+think it necessary to dispute. But, when it is taken to signify that
+everything we are told about the world of spirits in these books is
+infallibly true; that we are bound to accept the demonology which
+constitutes an inseparable part of their teaching; and to profess
+belief in a Supernaturalism as gross as that of any primitive
+people--it is at any rate permissible to ask why? Science may be
+unable to define the limits of possibility, but it cannot escape from
+the moral obligation to weigh the evidence in favour of any alleged
+wonderful occurrence; and I have endeavoured to show that the evidence
+for the Gadarene miracle is altogether worthless. We have simply
+three, partially discrepant, versions of a story, about the primitive
+form, the origin, and the authority for which we know absolutely
+nothing. But the evidence in favour of the Gadarene miracle is as good
+as that for any other.
+
+Elsewhere, I have pointed out that it is utterly beside the mark to
+declaim against these conclusions on the ground of their asserted
+tendency to deprive mankind of the consolations of the Christian
+faith, and to destroy the foundations of morality; still less to brand
+them with the question-begging vituperative appellation of
+"infidelity." The point is not whether they are wicked; but, whether,
+from the point of view of scientific method, they are irrefragably
+true. If they are, they will be accepted in time, whether they are
+wicked, or not wicked. Nature, so far as we have been able to attain
+to any insight into her ways, recks little about consolation and makes
+for righteousness by very round-about paths. And, at any rate,
+whatever may be possible for other people, it is becoming less and
+less possible for the man who puts his faith in scientific methods of
+ascertaining truth, and is accustomed to have that faith justified by
+daily experience, to be consciously false to his principle in any
+matter. But the number of such men, driven into the use of scientific
+methods of inquiry and taught to trust them, by their education, their
+daily professional and business needs, is increasing and will
+continually increase. The phraseology of Supernaturalism may remain on
+men's lips, but in practice they are Naturalists. The magistrate who
+listens with devout attention to the precept "Thou shalt not suffer a
+witch to live" on Sunday, on Monday, dismisses, as intrinsically
+absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against some old woman;
+the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for
+rational modes of treatment would have but a short tenure of office;
+even parish clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as
+the wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men, not
+to the churches, but to the drains. In spite of prayers for the
+success of our arms and _Te Deums_ for victory, our real faith is in
+big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in knowledge of the science
+of warfare; in energy, courage, and discipline. In these, as in all
+other practical affairs, we act on the aphorism "_Laborare est
+orare_"; we admit that intelligent work is the only acceptable
+worship; and that, whether there be a Supernature or not, our business
+is with Nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is important to note that the principle of the scientific
+Naturalism of the latter half of the nineteenth century, in which the
+intellectual movement of the Renascence has culminated, and which was
+first clearly formulated by Descartes, leads not to the denial of the
+existence of any Supernature;[12] but simply to the denial of the
+validity of the evidence adduced in favour of this, or of that, extant
+form of Supernaturalism.
+
+Looking at the matter from the most rigidly scientific point of view,
+the assumption that, amidst the myriads of worlds scattered through
+endless space, there can be no intelligence, as much greater than
+man's as his is greater than a blackbeetle's; no being endowed with
+powers of influencing the course of nature as much greater than his,
+as his is greater than a snail's seems to me not merely baseless, but
+impertinent. Without stepping beyond the analogy of that which is
+known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, in ascending
+scale, until we reach something practically indistinguishable from
+omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. If our intelligence can,
+in some matters, surely reproduce the past of thousands of years ago
+and anticipate the future, thousands of years hence, it is clearly
+within the limits of possibility that some greater intellect, even of
+the same order, may be able to mirror the whole past and the whole
+future; if the universe is penetrated by a medium of such a nature
+that a magnetic needle on the earth answers to a commotion in the sun,
+an omnipresent agent is also conceivable; if our insignificant
+knowledge gives us some influence over events, practical omniscience
+may confer indefinably greater power. Finally, if evidence that a
+thing may be, were equivalent to proof that it is, analogy might
+justify the construction of a naturalistic theology and demonology not
+less wonderful than the current supernatural; just as it might justify
+the peopling of Mars, or of Jupiter, with living forms to which
+terrestrial biology offers no parallel. Until human life is longer and
+the duties of the present press less heavily, I do not think that wise
+men will occupy themselves with Jovian, or Martian, natural history;
+and they will probably agree to a verdict of "not proven" in respect
+of naturalistic theology, taking refuge in that agnostic confession,
+which appears to me to be the only position for people who object to
+say that they know what they are quite aware they do not know. As to
+the interests of morality, I am disposed to think that if mankind
+could be got to act up to this last principle in every relation of
+life, a reformation would be effected such as the world has not yet
+seen; an approximation to the millennium, such as no supernaturalistic
+religion has ever yet succeeded, or seems likely ever to succeed, in
+effecting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have hitherto dwelt upon scientific Naturalism chiefly in its
+critical and destructive aspect. But the present incarnation of the
+spirit of the Renascence differs from its predecessor in the
+eighteenth century, in that it builds up, as well as pulls down.
+
+That of which it has laid the foundation, of which it is already
+raising the superstructure, is the doctrine of evolution. But so many
+strange misconceptions are current about this doctrine--it is attacked
+on such false grounds by its enemies, and made to cover so much that
+is disputable by some of its friends, that I think it well to define
+as clearly as I can, what I do not and what I do understand by the
+doctrine.
+
+I have nothing to say to any "Philosophy of Evolution." Attempts to
+construct such a philosophy may be as useful, nay, even as admirable,
+as was the attempt of Descartes to get at a theory of the universe by
+the same _a priori_ road; but, in my judgment, they are as premature.
+Nor, for this purpose, have I to do with any theory of the "Origin of
+Species," much as I value that which is known as the Darwinian theory.
+That the doctrine of natural selection presupposes evolution is quite
+true; but it is not true that evolution necessarily implies natural
+selection. In fact, evolution might conceivably have taken place
+without the development of groups possessing the characters of
+species.
+
+For me, the doctrine of evolution is no speculation, but a
+generalisation of certain facts, which may be observed by any one who
+will take the necessary trouble. These facts are those which are
+classed by biologists under the heads of Embryology and of
+Palaeontology. Embryology proves that every higher form of individual
+life becomes what it is by a process of gradual differentiation from
+an extremely low form; palaeontology proves, in some cases, and renders
+probable in all, that the oldest types of a group are the lowest; and
+that they have been followed by a gradual succession of more and more
+differentiated forms. It is simply a fact, that evolution of the
+individual animal and plant is taking place, as a natural process, in
+millions and millions of cases every day; it is a fact, that the
+species which have succeeded one another in the past, do, in many
+cases, present just those morphological relations, which they must
+possess, if they had proceeded, one from the other, by an analogous
+process of evolution.
+
+The alternative presented, therefore, is: either the forms of one and
+the same type--say, _e.g._, that of the Horse tribe[13]--arose
+successively, but independently of one another, at intervals, during
+myriads of years; or, the later forms are modified descendants of the
+earlier. And the latter supposition is so vastly more probable than
+the former, that rational men will adopt it, unless satisfactory
+evidence to the contrary can be produced. The objection sometimes put
+forward, that no one yet professes to have seen one species pass into
+another, comes oddly from those who believe that mankind are all
+descended from Adam. Has any one then yet seen the production of
+negroes from a white stock, or _vice versa_? Moreover, is it
+absolutely necessary to have watched every step of the progress of a
+planet, to be justified in concluding that it really does go round the
+sun? If so, astronomy is in a bad way.
+
+I do not, for a moment, presume to suggest that some one, far better
+acquainted than I am with astronomy and physics; or that a master of
+the new chemistry, with its extraordinary revelations; or that a
+student of the development of human society, of language, and of
+religions, may not find a sufficient foundation for the doctrine of
+evolution in these several regions. On the contrary, I rejoice to see
+that scientific investigation, in all directions, is tending to the
+same result. And it may well be, that it is only my long occupation
+with biological matters that leads me to feel safer among them than
+anywhere else. Be that as it may, I take my stand on the facts of
+embryology and of palaeontology; and I hold that our present knowledge
+of these facts is sufficiently thorough and extensive to justify the
+assertion that all future philosophical and theological speculations
+will have to accommodate themselves to some such common body of
+established truths as the following:--
+
+1. Plants and animals have existed on our planet for many hundred
+thousand, probably millions, of years. During this time, their forms,
+or species, have undergone a succession of changes, which eventually
+gave rise to the species which constitute the present living
+population of the earth. There is no evidence, nor any reason to
+suspect, that this secular process of evolution is other than a part
+of the ordinary course of nature; there is no more ground for
+imagining the occurrence of supernatural intervention, at any moment
+in the development of species in the past, than there is for supposing
+such intervention to take place, at any moment in the development of
+an individual animal or plant, at the present day.
+
+2. At present, every individual animal or plant commences its
+existence as an organism of extremely simple anatomical structure; and
+it acquires all the complexity it ultimately possesses by gradual
+differentiation into parts of various structure and function. When a
+series of specific forms of the same type, extending over a long
+period of past time, is examined, the relation between the earlier and
+the later forms is analogous to that between earlier and later stages
+of individual development. Therefore, it is a probable conclusion
+that, if we could follow living beings back to their earlier states,
+we should find them to present forms similar to those of the
+individual germ, or, what comes to the same thing, of those lowest
+known organisms which stand upon the boundary line between plants and
+animals. At present, our knowledge of the ancient living world stops
+very far short of this point.
+
+3. It is generally agreed, and there is certainly no evidence to the
+contrary, that all plants are devoid of consciousness; that they
+neither feel, desire, nor think. It is conceivable that the evolution
+of the primordial living substance should have taken place only along
+the plant line. In that case, the result might have been a wealth of
+vegetable life, as great, perhaps as varied, as at present, though
+certainly widely different from the present flora, in the evolution of
+which animals have played so great a part. But the living world thus
+constituted would be simply an admirable piece of unconscious
+machinery, the working out of which lay potentially in its primitive
+composition; pleasure and pain would have no place in it; it would be
+a veritable Garden of Eden without any tree of the knowledge of good
+and evil. The question of the moral government of such a world could
+no more be asked, than we could reasonably seek for a moral purpose in
+a kaleidoscope.
+
+4. How far down the scale of animal life the phenomena of
+consciousness are manifested, it is impossible to say. No one doubts
+their presence in his fellow-men; and, unless any strict Cartesians
+are left, no one doubts that mammals and birds are to be reckoned
+creatures that have feelings analogous to our smell, taste, sight,
+hearing, touch, pleasure, and pain. For my own part, I should be
+disposed to extend this analogical judgment a good deal further. On
+the other hand, if the lowest forms of plants are to be denied
+consciousness, I do not see on what ground it is to be ascribed to the
+lowest animals. I find it hard to believe that an infusory animalcule,
+a foraminifer, or a fresh-water polype is capable of feeling; and, in
+spite of Shakspere, I have doubts about the great sensitiveness of the
+"poor beetle that we tread upon." The question is equally perplexing
+when we turn to the stages of development of the individual. Granted a
+fowl feels; that the chick just hatched feels; that the chick when it
+chirps within the egg may possibly feel; what is to be said of it on
+the fifth day, when the bird is there, but with all its tissues
+nascent? Still more, on the first day, when it is nothing but a flat
+cellular disk? I certainly cannot bring myself to believe that this
+disk feels. Yet if it does not, there must be some time in the three
+weeks, between the first day and the day of hatching, when, as a
+concomitant, or a consequence, of the attainment by the brain of the
+chick of a certain stage of structural evolution, consciousness makes
+its appearance. I have frequently expressed my incapacity to
+understand the nature of the relation between consciousness and a
+certain anatomical tissue, which is thus established by observation.
+But the fact remains that, so far as observation and experiment go,
+they teach us that the psychical phenomena are dependent on the
+physical.
+
+In like manner, if fishes, insects, scorpions, and such animals as the
+pearly nautilus, possess feeling, then undoubtedly consciousness was
+present in the world as far back as the Silurian epoch. But, if the
+earliest animals were similar to our rhizopods and monads, there must
+have been some time, between the much earlier epoch in which they
+constituted the whole animal population and the Silurian, in which
+feeling dawned, in consequence of the organism having reached the
+stage of evolution on which it depends.
+
+5. Consciousness has various forms, which may be manifested
+independently of one another. The feelings of light and colour, of
+sound, of touch, though so often associated with those of pleasure and
+pain, are, by nature, as entirely independent of them as is thinking.
+An animal devoid of the feelings of pleasure and of pain, may
+nevertheless exhibit all the effects of sensation and purposive
+action. Therefore, it would be a justifiable hypothesis that, long
+after organic evolution had attained to consciousness, pleasure and
+pain were still absent. Such a world would be without either happiness
+or misery; no act could be punished and none could be rewarded; and it
+could have no moral purpose.
+
+6. Suppose, for argument's sake, that all mammals and birds are
+subjects of pleasure and pain. Then we may be certain that these forms
+of consciousness were in existence at the beginning of the Mesozoic
+epoch. From that time forth, pleasure has been distributed without
+reference to merit, and pain inflicted without reference to demerit,
+throughout all but a mere fraction of the higher animals. Moreover,
+the amount and the severity of the pain, no less than the variety and
+acuteness of the pleasure, have increased with every advance in the
+scale of evolution. As suffering came into the world, not in
+consequence of a fall, but of a rise, in the scale of being, so every
+further rise has brought more suffering. As the evidence stands it
+would appear that the sort of brain which characterizes the highest
+mammals and which, so far as we know, is the indispensable condition
+of the highest sensibility, did not come into existence before the
+Tertiary epoch. The primordial anthropoid was probably, in this
+respect, on much the same footing as his pithecoid kin. Like them he
+stood upon his "natural rights," gratified all his desires to the best
+of his ability, and was as incapable of either right or wrong doing
+as they. It would be as absurd as in their case, to regard his
+pleasures, any more than theirs, as moral rewards, and his pains, any
+more than theirs, as moral punishments.
+
+7. From the remotest ages of which we have any cognizance, death has
+been the natural and, apparently, the necessary concomitant of life.
+In our hypothetical world (3), inhabited by nothing but plants, death
+must have very early resulted from the struggle for existence: many of
+the crowd must have jostled one another out of the conditions on which
+life depends. The occurrence of death, as far back as we have any
+fossil record of life, however, needs not to be proved by such
+arguments; for, if there had been no death there would have been no
+fossil remains, such as the great majority of those we met with. Not
+only was there death in the world, as far as the record of life takes
+us; but, ever since mammals and birds have been preyed upon by
+carnivorous animals, there has been painful death, inflicted by
+mechanisms specially adapted for inflicting it.
+
+8. Those who are acquainted with the closeness of the structural
+relations between the human organisation and that of the mammals which
+come nearest to him, on the one hand; and with the palaeontological
+history of such animals as horses and dogs, on the other; will not be
+disposed to question the origin of man from forms which stand in the
+same sort of relation to _Homo sapiens_, as _Hipparion_ does to
+_Equus_. I think it a conclusion, fully justified by analogy, that,
+sooner or later, we shall discover the remains of our less specialised
+primatic ancestors in the strata which have yielded the less
+specialised equine and canine quadrupeds. At present, fossil remains
+of men do not take us hack further than the later part of the
+Quaternary epoch; and, as was to be expected, they do not differ more
+from existing men, than Quaternary horses differ from existing horses.
+Still earlier we find traces of man, in implements, such as are used
+by the ruder savages at the present day. Later, the remains of the
+palaeolithic and neolithic conditions take us gradually from the savage
+state to the civilizations of Egypt and of Mycenae; though the true
+chronological order of the remains actually discovered may be
+uncertain.
+
+9. Much has yet to be learned, but, at present, natural knowledge
+affords no support to the notion that men have fallen from a higher to
+a lower state. On the contrary, everything points to a slow natural
+evolution; which, favoured by the surrounding conditions in such
+localities as the valleys of the Yang-tse-kang, the Euphrates, and the
+Nile, reached a relatively high pitch, five or six thousand years ago;
+while, in many other regions, the savage condition has persisted down
+to our day. In all this vast lapse of time there is not a trace of the
+occurrence of any general destruction of the human race; not the
+smallest indication that man has been treated on any other principles
+than the rest of the animal world.
+
+10. The results of the process of evolution in the case of man, and in
+that of his more nearly allied contemporaries, have been marvellously
+different. Yet it is easy to see that small primitive differences of a
+certain order, must, in the long run, bring about a wide divergence of
+the human stock from the others. It is a reasonable supposition that,
+in the earliest human organisms, an improved brain, a voice more
+capable of modulation and articulation, limbs which lent themselves
+better to gesture, a more perfect hand, capable among other things of
+imitating form in plastic or other material, were combined with the
+curiosity, the mimetic tendency, the strong family affection of the
+next lower group; and that they were accompanied by exceptional length
+of life and a prolonged minority. The last two peculiarities are
+obviously calculated to strengthen the family organisation, and to
+give great weight to its educative influences. The potentiality of
+language, as the vocal symbol of thought, lay in the faculty of
+modulating and articulating the voice. The potentiality of writing, as
+the visual symbol of thought, lay in the hand that could draw; and in
+the mimetic tendency, which, as we know, was gratified by drawing, as
+far back as the days of Quaternary man. With speech as the record, in
+tradition, of the experience of more than one generation; with writing
+as the record of that of any number of generations; the experience of
+the race, tested and corrected generation after generation, could be
+stored up and made the starting point for fresh progress. Having these
+perfectly natural factors of the evolutionary process in man before
+us, it seems unnecessary to go further a-field in search of others.
+
+11. That the doctrine of evolution implies a former state of innocence
+of mankind is quite true; but, as I have remarked, it is the innocence
+of the ape and of the tiger, whose acts, however they may run counter
+to the principles of morality, it would be absurd to blame. The lust
+of the one and the ferocity of the other are as much provided for in
+their organisation, are as clear evidences of design, as any other
+features that can be named.
+
+Observation and experiment upon the phenomena of society soon taught
+men that, in order to obtain the advantages of social existence,
+certain rules must be observed. Morality commenced with society.
+Society is possible only upon the condition that the members of it
+shall surrender more or less of their individual freedom of action. In
+primitive societies, individual selfishness is a centrifugal force of
+such intensity that it is constantly bringing the social organisation
+to the verge of destruction. Hence the prominence of the positive
+rules of obedience to the elders; of standing by the family or the
+tribe in all emergencies; of fulfilling the religious rites,
+non-observance of which is conceived to damage it with the
+supernatural powers, belief in whose existence is one of the earliest
+products of human thought; and of the negative rules which restrain
+each from meddling with the life or property of another.
+
+12. The highest conceivable form of human society is that in which the
+desire to do what is best for the whole dominates and limits the
+action of every member of that society. The more complex the social
+organisation the greater the number of acts from which each man must
+abstain if he desires to do that which is best for all. Thus the
+progressive evolution of society means increasing restriction of
+individual freedom in certain directions.
+
+With the advance of civilisation, and the growth of cities and of
+nations by the coalescence of families and of tribes, the rules which
+constitute the common foundation of morality and of law became more
+numerous and complicated, and the temptations to break or evade many
+of them stronger. In the absence of a clear apprehension of the
+natural sanctions of these rules, a supernatural sanction was assumed;
+and imagination supplied the motives which reason was supposed to be
+incompetent to furnish. Religion, at first independent of morality,
+gradually took morality under its protection; and the supernaturalists
+have ever since tried to persuade mankind that the existence of ethics
+is bound up with that of supernaturalism.
+
+I am not of that opinion. But, whether it is correct or otherwise, it
+is very clear to me that, as Beelzebub is not to be cast out by the
+aid of Beelzebub, so morality is not to be established by immorality.
+It is, we are told, the special peculiarity of the devil that he was a
+liar from the beginning. If we set out in life with pretending to know
+that which we do not know; with professing to accept for proof
+evidence which we are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shutting
+our eyes and our ears to facts which militate against this or that
+comfortable hypothesis; we are assuredly doing our best to deserve the
+same character.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have not the presumption to imagine that, in spite of all my
+efforts, errors may not have crept into these propositions. But I am
+tolerably confident that time will prove them to be substantially
+correct. And if they are so, I confess I do not see how any extant
+supernaturalistic system can also claim exactness. That they are
+irreconcilable with the biblical cosmogony, anthropology, and
+theodicy is obvious; but they are no less inconsistent with the
+sentimental Deism of the "Vicaire Savoyard" and his numerous modern
+progeny. It is as impossible, to my mind, to suppose that the
+evolutionary process was set going with full foreknowledge of the
+result and yet with what we should understand by a purely benevolent
+intention, as it is to imagine that the intention was purely
+malevolent. And the prevalence of dualistic theories from the earliest
+times to the present day--whether in the shape of the doctrine of the
+inherently evil nature of matter; of an Ahriman; of a hard and cruel
+Demiurge; of a diabolical "prince of this world," show how widely this
+difficulty has been felt.
+
+Many seem to think that, when it is admitted that the ancient
+literature, contained in our Bibles, has no more claim to
+infallibility than any other ancient literature; when it is proved
+that the Israelites and their Christian successors accepted a great
+many supernaturalistic theories and legends which have no better
+foundation than those of heathenism, nothing remains to be done but to
+throw the Bible aside as so much waste paper.
+
+I have always opposed this opinion. It appears to me that if there is
+anybody more objectionable than the orthodox Bibliolater it is the
+heterodox Philistine, who can discover in a literature which, in some
+respects, has no superior, nothing but a subject for scoffing and an
+occasion for the display of his conceited ignorance of the debt he
+owes to former generations.
+
+Twenty-two years ago I pleaded for the use of the Bible as an
+instrument of popular education, and I venture to repeat what I then
+said:
+
+"Consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this
+book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in
+English history; that it has become the national Epic of Britain and
+is as familiar to gentle and simple, from John o' Groat's House to
+Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is
+written in the noblest and purest English and abounds in exquisite
+beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the
+veriest hind, who never left his village, to be ignorant of the
+existence of other countries and other civilisations and of a great
+past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in
+the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much
+humanised and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical
+procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the
+interval between the Eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses
+of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as
+they also are earning their payment for their work?"[14]
+
+At the same time, I laid stress upon the necessity of placing such
+instruction in lay hands; in the hope and belief, that it would thus
+gradually accommodate itself to the coming changes of opinion; that
+the theology and the legend would drop more and more out of sight,
+while the perennially interesting historical, literary, and ethical
+contents would come more and more into view.
+
+I may add yet another claim of the Bible to the respect and the
+attention of a democratic age. Throughout the history of the western
+world, the Scriptures, Jewish and Christian, have been the great
+instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and
+political despotism. The Bible has been the _Magna Charta_ of the poor
+and of the oppressed; down to modern times, no State has had a
+constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken
+into account, in which the duties, so much more than the privileges,
+of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in
+Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that
+the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness
+of the citizen so strongly laid down. Assuredly, the Bible talks no
+trash about the rights of man; but it insists on the equality of
+duties, on the liberty to bring about that righteousness which is
+somewhat different from struggling for "rights"; on the fraternity of
+taking thought for one's neighbour as for one's self.
+
+So far as such equality, liberty, and fraternity are included under
+the democratic principles which assume the same names, the Bible is
+the most democratic book in the world. As such it began, through the
+heretical sects, to undermine the clerico-political despotism of the
+middle ages, almost as soon as it was formed, in the eleventh century;
+Pope and King had as much as they could do to put down the Albigenses
+and the Waldenses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the
+Lollards and the Hussites gave them still more trouble in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth; from the sixteenth century onward, the
+Protestant sects have favoured political freedom in proportion to the
+degree in which they have refused to acknowledge any ultimate
+authority save that of the Bible.
+
+But the enormous influence which has thus been exerted by the Jewish
+and Christian Scriptures has had no necessary connection with
+cosmogonies, demonologies, and miraculous interferences. Their
+strength lies in their appeals, not to the reason, but to the ethical
+sense. I do not say that even the highest biblical ideal is exclusive
+of others or needs no supplement. But I do believe that the human race
+is not yet, possibly may never be, in a position to dispense with it.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [8]  With a few exceptions, which are duly noted when
+          they amount to more than verbal corrections.
+
+     [9]  _Declaration on the Truth of Holy Scripture._ The
+          _Times_, 18th December, 1891.
+
+     [10] _Declaration_, Article 10.
+
+     [11] Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi ecclesiae
+          Catholicae me commoveret auctoritas.--_Contra Epistolam
+          Manichaei_, cap. v.
+
+     [12] I employ the words "Supernature" and "Supernatural"
+          in their popular senses. For myself, I am bound to say
+          that the term "Nature" covers the totality of that
+          which is. The world of psychical phenomena appears to
+          me to be as much part of "Nature" as the world of
+          physical phenomena; and I am unable to perceive any
+          justification for cutting the Universe into two halves,
+          one natural and one supernatural.
+
+     [13] The general reader will find an admirably clear
+          and concise statement of the evidence in this case, in
+          Professor Flower's recently published work _The Horse:
+          a Study in Natural History_.
+
+     [14] "The School Boards: What they Can do and what they
+          May do," 1870. _Critiques and Addresses_, p. 51.
+
+
+
+
+II: SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM
+
+[1887]
+
+
+Next to undue precipitation in anticipating the results of pending
+investigations, the intellectual sin which is commonest and most
+hurtful to those who devote themselves to the increase of knowledge is
+the omission to profit by the experience of their predecessors
+recorded in the history of science and philosophy. It is true that, at
+the present day, there is more excuse than at any former time for such
+neglect. No small labour is needed to raise one's self to the level of
+the acquisitions already made; and able men, who have achieved thus
+much, know that, if they devote themselves body and soul to the
+increase of their store, and avoid looking back, with as much care as
+if the injunction laid on Lot and his family were binding upon them,
+such devotion is sure to be richly repaid by the joys of the
+discoverer and the solace of fame, if not by rewards of a less
+elevated character.
+
+So, following the advice of Francis Bacon, we refuse _inter mortuos
+quaerere vivum_; we leave the past to bury its dead, and ignore our
+intellectual ancestry. Nor are we content with that. We follow the
+evil example set us, not only by Bacon but by almost all the men of
+the Renaissance, in pouring scorn upon the work of our immediate
+spiritual forefathers, the schoolmen of the Middle Ages. It is
+accepted as a truth which is indisputable, that, for seven or eight
+centuries, a long succession of able men--some of them of transcendent
+acuteness and encyclopaedic knowledge--devoted laborious lives to the
+grave discussion of mere frivolities and the arduous pursuit of
+intellectual will-o'-the-wisps. To say nothing of a little modesty, a
+little impartial pondering over personal experience might suggest a
+doubt as to the adequacy of this short and easy method of dealing with
+a large chapter of the history of the human mind. Even an acquaintance
+with popular literature which had extended so far as to include that
+part of the contributions of Sam Slick which contains his weighty
+aphorism that "there is a great deal of human nature in all mankind,"
+might raise a doubt whether, after all, the men of that epoch, who,
+take them all round, were endowed with wisdom and folly in much the
+same proportion as ourselves, were likely to display nothing better
+than the qualities of energetic idiots, when they devoted their
+faculties to the elucidation of problems which were to them, and
+indeed are to us, the most serious which life has to offer. Speaking
+for myself, the longer I live the more I am disposed to think that
+there is much less either of pure folly, or of pure wickedness, in the
+world than is commonly supposed. It may be doubted if any sane man
+ever said to himself, "Evil, be thou my good," and I have never yet
+had the good fortune to meet with a perfect fool. When I have brought
+to the inquiry the patience and long-suffering which become a
+scientific investigator, the most promising specimens have turned out
+to have a good deal to say for themselves from their own point of
+view. And, sometimes, calm reflection has taught the humiliating
+lesson, that their point of view was not so different from my own as I
+had fondly imagined. Comprehension is more than half-way to sympathy,
+here as elsewhere.
+
+If we turn our attention to scholastic philosophy in the frame of mind
+suggested by these prefatory remarks, it assumes a very different
+character from that which it bears in general estimation. No doubt it
+is surrounded by a dense thicket of thorny logomachies and obscured by
+the dust-clouds of a barbarous and perplexing terminology. But suppose
+that, undeterred by much grime and by many scratches, the explorer
+has toiled through this jungle, he comes to an open country which is
+amazingly like his dear native land. The hills which he has to climb,
+the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same; there is the
+same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the unknown below;
+the means of travelling are the same, and the goal is the same.
+
+That goal for the schoolmen, as for us, is the settlement of the
+question how far the universe is the manifestation of a rational
+order; in other words, how far logical deduction from indisputable
+premisses will account for what which has happened and does happen.
+That was the object of scholasticism, and, so far as I am aware, the
+object of modern science may be expressed in the same terms. In
+pursuit of this end, modern science takes into account all the
+phenomena of the universe which are brought to our knowledge by
+observation or by experiment. It admits that there are two worlds to
+be considered, the one physical and the other psychical; and that
+though there is a most intimate relation and interconnection between
+the two, the bridge from one to the other has yet to be found; that
+their phenomena run, not in one series, but along two parallel lines.
+
+To the schoolmen the duality of the universe appeared under a
+different aspect. How this came about will not be intelligible unless
+we clearly apprehend the fact that they did really believe in
+dogmatic Christianity as it was formulated by the Roman Church. They
+did not give a mere dull assent to anything the Church told them on
+Sundays, and ignore her teachings for the rest of the week; but they
+lived and moved and had their being in that supersensible theological
+world which was created, or rather grew up, during the first four
+centuries of our reckoning, and which occupied their thoughts far more
+than the sensible world in which their earthly lot was cast.
+
+For the most part, we learn history from the colourless compendiums or
+partisan briefs of mere scholars, who have too little acquaintance
+with practical life, and too little insight into speculative problems,
+to understand that about which they write. In historical science, as
+in all sciences which have to do with concrete phenomena, laboratory
+practice is indispensable; and the laboratory practice of historical
+science is afforded, on the one hand, by active social and political
+life, and, on the other, by the study of those tendencies and
+operations of the mind which embody themselves in philosophical and
+theological systems. Thucydides and Tacitus, and, to come nearer our
+own time, Hume and Grote, were men of affairs, and had acquired, by
+direct contact with social and political history in the making, the
+secret of understanding how such history is made. Our notions of the
+intellectual history of the middle ages are, unfortunately, too often
+derived from writers who have never seriously grappled with
+philosophical and theological problems: and hence that strange myth of
+a millennium of moonshine to which I have adverted.
+
+However, no very profound study of the works of contemporary writers
+who, without devoting themselves specially to theology or philosophy,
+were learned and enlightened--such men, for example, as Eginhard or
+Dante--is necessary to convince one's self, that, for them, the world
+of the theologian was an ever-present and awful reality. From the
+centre of that world, the Divine Trinity, surrounded by a hierarchy of
+angels and saints, contemplated and governed the insignificant
+sensible world in which the inferior spirits of men, burdened with the
+debasement of their material embodiment and continually solicited to
+their perdition by a no less numerous and almost as powerful hierarchy
+of devils, were constantly struggling on the edge of the pit of
+everlasting damnation.[15]
+
+The men of the middle ages believed that through the Scriptures, the
+traditions of the Fathers, and the authority of the Church, they were
+in possession of far more, and more trustworthy, information with
+respect to the nature and order of things in the theological world
+than they had in regard to the nature and order of things in the
+sensible world. And, if the two sources of information came into
+conflict, so much the worse for the sensible world, which, after all,
+was more or less under the dominion of Satan. Let us suppose that a
+telescope powerful enough to show us what is going on in the nebula of
+the sword of Orion, should reveal a world in which stones fell
+upwards, parallel lines met, and the fourth dimension of space was
+quite obvious. Men of science would have only two alternatives before
+them. Either the terrestrial and the nebular facts must be brought
+into harmony by such feats of subtle sophistry as the human mind is
+always capable of performing when driven into a corner; or science
+must throw down its arms in despair, and commit suicide, either by the
+admission that the universe is, after all, irrational, inasmuch as
+that which is truth in one corner of it is absurdity in another, or by
+a declaration of incompetency.
+
+In the middle ages, the labours of those great men who endeavoured to
+reconcile the system of thought which started from the data of pure
+reason, with that which started from the data of Roman theology,
+produced the system of thought which is known as scholastic
+philosophy; the alternative of surrender and suicide is exemplified by
+Avicenna and his followers when they declared that that which is true
+in theology may be false in philosophy, and _vice versa_; and by
+Sanchez in his famous defence of the thesis "_Quod nil scitur_."
+
+To those who deny the validity of one of the primary assumptions of
+the disputants--who decline, on the ground of the utter insufficiency
+of the evidence, to put faith in the reality of that other world, the
+geography and the inhabitants of which are so confidently described in
+the so-called[16] Christianity of Catholicism--the long and bitter
+contest, which engaged the best intellects for so many centuries, may
+seem a terrible illustration of the wasteful way in which the struggle
+for existence is carried on in the world of thought, no less than in
+that of matter. But there is a more cheerful mode of looking at the
+history of scholasticism. It ground and sharpened the dialectic
+implements of our race as perhaps nothing but discussions, in the
+result of which men thought their eternal, no less than their
+temporal, interests were at stake, could have done. When a logical
+blunder may ensure combustion, not only in the next world but in this,
+the construction of syllogisms acquires a peculiar interest. Moreover,
+the schools kept the thinking faculty alive and active, when the
+disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by
+the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural
+knowledge, might well have stifled it. And, finally, it should be
+remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually
+certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since
+they began to think, and which, I suppose, will present themselves so
+long as they continue to think. Consider, for example, the controversy
+of the Realists and the Nominalists, which was carried on with varying
+fortunes, and under various names, from the time of Scotus Erigena to
+the end of the scholastic period. Has it now a merely antiquarian
+interest? Has Nominalism, in any of its modifications, so completely
+won the day that Realism may be regarded as dead and buried without
+hope of resurrection? Many people seem to think so, but it appears to
+me that, without taking Catholic philosophy into consideration, one
+has not to look about far to find evidence that Realism is still to
+the fore, and indeed extremely lively.[17]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The other day I happened to meet with a report of a sermon recently
+preached in St. Paul's Cathedral. From internal evidence I am inclined
+to think that the report is substantially correct. But as I have not
+the slightest intention of finding fault with the eminent theologian
+and eloquent preacher to whom the discourse is attributed, for
+employment of scientific language in a manner for which he could find
+only too many scientific precedents, the accuracy of the report in
+detail is not to the purpose. I may safely take it as the embodiment
+of views which are thought to be quite in accordance with science by
+many excellent, instructed, and intelligent people.
+
+     The preacher further contended that it was yet more
+     difficult to realise that our earthly home would become the
+     scene of a vast physical catastrophe. Imagination recoils
+     from the idea that the course of nature--the phrase helps to
+     disguise the truth--so unvarying and regular, the ordered
+     sequence of movement and life, should suddenly cease.
+     Imagination looks more reasonable when it assumes the air of
+     scientific reason. Physical law, it says, will prevent the
+     occurrence of catastrophes only anticipated by an apostle in
+     an unscientific age. Might not there, however, be a
+     suspension of a lower law by the intervention of a higher?
+     Thus every time we lifted our arms we defied the laws of
+     gravitation, and in railways and steamboats powerful laws
+     were held in check by others. The flood and the destruction
+     of Sodom and Gomorrah were brought about by the operation of
+     existing laws, and may it not be that in His illimitable
+     universe there are more important laws than those which
+     surround our puny life--moral and not merely physical
+     forces? Is it inconceivable that the day will come when
+     these royal and ultimate laws shall wreck the natural order
+     of things which seems so stable and so fair? Earthquakes
+     were not things of remote antiquity, as an island off Italy,
+     the Eastern Archipelago, Greece, and Chicago bore
+     witness.... In presence of a great earthquake men feel how
+     powerless they are, and their very knowledge adds to their
+     weakness. The end of human probation, the final dissolution
+     of organised society, and the destruction of man's home on
+     the surface of the globe, were none of them violently
+     contrary to our present experience, but only the extension
+     of present facts. The presentiment of death was common;
+     there were felt to be many things which threatened the
+     existence of society; and as our globe was a ball of fire,
+     at any moment the pent-up forces which surge and boil
+     beneath our feet might be poured out ("Pall Mall Gazette,"
+     December 6, 1886).
+
+The preacher appears to entertain the notion that the occurrence of a
+"catastrophe"[18] involves a breach of the present order of
+nature--that it is an event incompatible with the physical laws which
+at present obtain. He seems to be of opinion that "scientific reason"
+lends its authority to the imaginative supposition that physical law
+will prevent the occurrence of the "catastrophes" anticipated by an
+unscientific apostle.
+
+Scientific reason, like Homer, sometimes nods; but I am not aware that
+it has ever dreamed dreams of this sort. The fundamental axiom of
+scientific thought is that there is not, never has been, and never
+will be, any disorder in nature. The admission of the occurrence of
+any event which was not the logical consequence of the immediately
+antecedent events, according to these definite, ascertained, or
+unascertained rules which we call the "laws of nature," would be an
+act of self-destruction on the part of science.
+
+"Catastrophe" is a relative conception. For ourselves it means an
+event which brings about very terrible consequences to man, or
+impresses his mind by its magnitude relatively to him. But events
+which are quite in the natural order of things to us, may be
+frightful catastrophes to other sentient beings. Surely no
+interruption of the order of nature is involved if, in the course of
+descending through an Alpine pine-wood, I jump upon an anthill and in
+a moment wreck a whole city and destroy a hundred thousand of its
+inhabitants. To the ants the catastrophe is worse than the earthquake
+of Lisbon. To me it is the natural and necessary consequence of the
+laws of matter in motion. A redistribution of energy has taken place,
+which is perfectly in accordance with natural order, however
+unpleasant its effects may be to the ants.
+
+Imagination, inspired by scientific reason, and not merely assuming
+the airs thereof, as it unfortunately too often does in the pulpit, so
+far from having any right to repudiate catastrophes and deny the
+possibility of the cessation of motion and life, easily finds
+justification for the exactly contrary course. Kant in his famous
+"Theory of the Heavens" declares the end of the world and its
+reduction to a formless condition to be a necessary consequence of the
+causes to which it owes its origin and continuance. And, as to
+catastrophes of prodigious magnitude and frequent occurrence, they
+were the favourite _asylum ignorantiae_ of geologists, not a quarter of
+a century ago. If modern geology is becoming more and more disinclined
+to call in catastrophes to its aid, it is not because of any _a
+priori_ difficulty in reconciling the occurrence of such events with
+the universality of order, but because the _a posteriori_ evidence of
+the occurrence of events of this character in past times has more or
+less completely broken down.
+
+It is, to say the least, highly probable that this earth is a mass of
+extremely hot matter, invested by a cooled crust, through which the
+hot interior still continues to cool, though with extreme slowness. It
+is no less probable that the faults and dislocations, the foldings and
+fractures, everywhere visible in the stratified crust, its large and
+slow movements through miles of elevation and depression, and its
+small and rapid movements which give rise to the innumerable perceived
+and unperceived earthquakes which are constantly occurring, are due to
+the shrinkage of the crust on its cooling and contracting nucleus.
+
+Without going beyond the range of fair scientific analogy, conditions
+are easily conceivable which should render the loss of heat far more
+rapid than it is at present; and such an occurrence would be just as
+much in accordance with ascertained laws of nature, as the more rapid
+cooling of a red-hot bar, when it is thrust into cold water, than when
+it remains in the air. But much more rapid cooling might entail a
+shifting and rearrangement of the parts of the crust of the earth on a
+scale of unprecedented magnitude, and bring about "catastrophes" to
+which the earthquake of Lisbon is but a trifle. It is conceivable that
+man and his works and all the higher forms of animal life should be
+utterly destroyed; that mountain regions should he converted into
+ocean depths and the floor of oceans raised into mountains; and the
+earth become a scene of horror which even the lurid fancy of the
+writer of the Apocalypse would fail to portray. And yet, to the eye of
+science, there would he no more disorder here than in the sabbatical
+peace of a summer sea. Not a link in the chain of natural causes and
+effects would he broken, nowhere would there be the slightest
+indication of the "suspension of a lower law by a higher." If a sober
+scientific thinker is inclined to put little faith in the wild
+vaticinations of universal ruin which, in a less saintly person than
+the seer of Patmos, might seem to be dictated by the fury of a
+revengeful fanatic, rather than by the spirit of the teacher who bid
+men love their enemies, it is not on the ground that they contradict
+scientific principles; but because the evidence of their scientific
+value does not fulfil the conditions on which weight is attached to
+evidence. The imagination which supposes that it does, simply does not
+"assume the air of scientific reason."
+
+I repeat that, if imagination is used within the limits laid down by
+science, disorder is unimaginable. If a being endowed with perfect
+intellectual and aesthetic faculties, but devoid of the capacity for
+suffering pain, either physical or moral, were to devote his utmost
+powers to the investigation of nature, the universe would seem to him
+to be a sort of kaleidoscope, in which, at every successive moment of
+time, a new arrangement of parts of exquisite beauty and symmetry
+would present itself; and each of them would show itself to be the
+logical consequence of the preceding arrangement, under the conditions
+which we call the laws of nature. Such a spectator might well be
+filled with that _Amor intellectualis Dei_, the beatific vision of the
+_vita contemplativa_, which some of the greatest thinkers of all ages,
+Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza, have regarded as the only conceivable
+eternal felicity; and the vision of illimitable suffering, as if
+sensitive beings were unregarded animalcules which had got between the
+bits of glass of the kaleidoscope, which mars the prospect to us poor
+mortals, in no wise alters the fact that order is lord of all, and
+disorder only a name for that part of the order which gives us pain.
+
+The other fallacious employment of the names of scientific conceptions
+which pervades the preacher's utterance, brings me back to the proper
+topic of the present essay. It is the use of the word "law" as if it
+denoted a thing--as if a "law of nature," as science understands it,
+were a being endowed with certain powers, in virtue of which the
+phenomena expressed by that law are brought about. The preacher asks,
+"Might not there be a suspension of a lower law by the intervention of
+a higher?" He tells us that every time we lift our arms we defy the
+law of gravitation. He asks whether some day certain "royal and
+ultimate laws" may not come and "wreck" those laws which are at
+present, it would appear, acting as nature's police. It is evident,
+from these expressions, that "laws," in the mind of the preacher, are
+entities having an objective existence in a graduated hierarchy. And
+it would appear that the "royal laws" are by no means to be regarded
+as constitutional royalties: at any moment, they may, like Eastern
+despots, descend in wrath among the middle-class and plebeian laws,
+which have hitherto done the drudgery of the world's work, and, to use
+phraseology not unknown in our seats of learning--"make hay" of their
+belongings. Or perhaps a still more familiar analogy has suggested
+this singular theory; and it is thought that high laws may "suspend"
+low laws, as a bishop may suspend a curate.
+
+Far be it from me to controvert these views, if any one likes to hold
+them. All I wish to remark is that such a conception of the nature of
+"laws" has nothing to do with modern science. It is scholastic
+realism--realism as intense and unmitigated as that of Scotus Erigena
+a thousand years ago. The essence of such realism is that it maintains
+the objective existence of universals, or, as we call them nowadays,
+general propositions. It affirms, for example, that "man" is a real
+thing, apart from individual men, having its existence, not in the
+sensible, but in the intelligible world, and clothing itself with the
+accidents of sense to make the Jack and Tom and Harry whom we know.
+Strange as such a notion may appear to modern scientific thought, it
+really pervades ordinary language. There are few people who would, at
+once, hesitate to admit that colour, for example, exists apart from
+the mind which conceives the idea of colour. They hold it to be
+something which resides in the coloured object; and so far they are as
+much Realists as if they had sat at Plato's feet. Reflection on the
+facts of the case must, I imagine, convince every one that "colour"
+is--not a mere name, which was the extreme Nominalist position--but a
+name for that group of states of feeling which we call blue, red,
+yellow, and so on, and which we believe to be caused by luminiferous
+vibrations which have not the slightest resemblance to colour; while
+these again are set afoot by states of the body to which we ascribe
+colour, but which are equally devoid of likeness to colour.
+
+In the same way, a law of nature, in the scientific sense, is the
+product of a mental operation upon the facts of nature which come
+under our observation, and has no more existence outside the mind than
+colour has. The law of gravitation is a statement of the manner in
+which experience shows that bodies, which are free to move, do, in
+fact, move towards one another. But the other facts of observation,
+that bodies are not always moving in this fashion, and sometimes move
+in a contrary direction, are implied in the words "free to move." If
+it is a law of nature that bodies tend to move towards one another in
+a certain way; it is another and no less true law of nature that, if
+bodies are not free to move as they tend to do, either in consequence
+of an obstacle, or of a contrary impulse from some other source of
+energy than that to which we give the name of gravitation, they either
+stop still, or go another way.
+
+Scientifically speaking, it is the acme of absurdity to talk of a man
+defying the law of gravitation when he lifts his arm. The general
+store of energy in the universe working through terrestrial matter is
+doubtless tending to bring the man's arm down; but the particular
+fraction of that energy which is working through certain of his
+nervous and muscular organs is tending to drive it up, and more energy
+being expended on the arm in the upward than in the downward
+direction, the arm goes up accordingly. But the law of gravitation is
+no more defied, in this case, than when a grocer throws so much sugar
+into the empty pan of his scales that the one which contains the
+weight kicks the beam.
+
+The tenacity of the wonderful fallacy that the laws of nature are
+agents, instead of being, as they really are, a mere record of
+experience, upon which we base our interpretations of that which does
+happen, and our anticipation of that which will happen, is an
+interesting psychological fact; and would be unintelligible if the
+tendency of the human mind towards realism were less strong.
+
+Even at the present day, and in the writings of men who would at once
+repudiate scholastic realism in any form, "law" is often inadvertently
+employed in the sense of cause, just as, in common life, a man will
+say that he is compelled by the law to do so and so, when, in point of
+fact, all he means is that the law orders him to do it, and tells him
+what will happen if he does not do it. We commonly hear of bodies
+falling to the ground by reason of the law of gravitation, whereas
+that law is simply the record of the fact that, according to all
+experience, they have so fallen (when free to move), and of the
+grounds of a reasonable expectation that they will so fall. If it
+should be worth anybody's while to seek for examples of such misuse of
+language on my own part, I am not at all sure he might not succeed,
+though I have usually been on my guard against such looseness of
+expression. If I am guilty, I do penance beforehand, and only hope
+that I may thereby deter others from committing the like fault. And I
+venture on this personal observation by way of showing that I have no
+wish to bear hardly on the preacher for falling into an error for
+which he might find good precedents. But it is one of those errors
+which, in the case of a person engaged in scientific pursuits, do
+little harm, because it is corrected as soon as its consequences
+become obvious; while those who know physical science only by name
+are, as has been seen, easily led to build a mighty fabric of
+unrealities on this fundamental fallacy. In fact, the habitual use of
+the word "law," in the sense of an active thing, is almost a mark of
+pseudo-science; it characterises the writings of those who have
+appropriated the forms of science without knowing anything of its
+substance.
+
+There are two classes of these people: those who are ready to believe
+in any miracle so long as it is guaranteed by ecclesiastical
+authority; and those who are ready to believe in any miracle so long
+as it has some different guarantee. The believers in what are
+ordinarily called miracles--those who accept the miraculous narratives
+which they are taught to think are essential elements of religious
+doctrine--are in the one category; the spirit-rappers, table-turners,
+and all the other devotees of the occult sciences of our day are in
+the other: and, if they disagree in most things they agree in this,
+namely, that they ascribe to science a dictum that is not scientific;
+and that they endeavour to upset the dictum thus foisted on science by
+a realistic argument which is equally unscientific.
+
+It is asserted, for example, that, on a particular occasion, water
+was turned into wine; and, on the other hand, it is asserted that a
+man or a woman "levitated" to the ceiling, floated about there, and
+finally sailed out by the window. And it is assumed that the
+pardonable scepticism, with which most scientific men receive these
+statements, is due to the fact that they feel themselves justified in
+denying the possibility of any such metamorphosis of water, or of any
+such levitation, because such events are contrary to the laws of
+nature. So the question of the preacher is triumphantly put: How do
+you know that there are not "higher" laws of nature than your chemical
+and physical laws, and that these higher laws may not intervene and
+"wreck" the latter?
+
+The plain answer to this question is, Why should anybody be called
+upon to say how he knows that which he does not know? You are assuming
+that laws are agents--efficient causes of that which happens--and that
+one law can interfere with another. To us, that assumption is as
+nonsensical as if you were to talk of a proposition of Euclid being
+the cause of the diagram which illustrates it, or of the integral
+calculus interfering with the rule of three. Your question really
+implies that we pretend to complete knowledge not only of all past and
+present phenomena, but of all that are possible in the future, and we
+leave all that sort of thing to the adepts of esoteric Buddhism. Our
+pretensions are infinitely more modest. We have succeeded in finding
+out the rules of action of a little bit of the universe; we call these
+rules "laws of nature," not because anybody knows whether they bind
+nature or not, but because we find it is obligatory on us to take them
+into account, both as actors under nature, and as interpreters of
+nature. We have any quantity of genuine miracles of our own, and if
+you will furnish us with as good evidence of your miracles as we have
+of ours, we shall be quite happy to accept them and to amend our
+expression of the laws of nature in accordance with the new facts.
+
+As to the particular cases adduced, we are so perfectly fair-minded as
+to be willing to help your case as far as we can. You are quite
+mistaken in supposing that anybody who is acquainted with the
+possibilities of physical science will undertake categorically to deny
+that water may be turned into wine. Many very competent judges are
+already inclined to think that the bodies, which we have hitherto
+called elementary, are really composite arrangements of the particles
+of a uniform primitive matter. Supposing that view to be correct,
+there would be no more theoretical difficulty about turning water into
+alcohol, ethereal and colouring matters, than there is, at this
+present moment, any practical difficulty in working other such
+miracles; as when we turn sugar into alcohol, carbonic acid,
+glycerine, and succinic acid; or transmute gas-refuse into perfumes
+rarer than musk and dyes richer than Tyrian purple. If the so-called
+"elements," oxygen and hydrogen, which compose water, are aggregates
+of the same ultimate particles, or physical units, as those which
+enter into the structure of the so-called element "carbon," it is
+obvious that alcohol and other substances, composed of carbon,
+hydrogen, and oxygen, may be produced by a rearrangement of some of
+the units of oxygen and hydrogen into the "element" carbon, and their
+synthesis with the rest of the oxygen and hydrogen.
+
+Theoretically, therefore, we can have no sort of objection to your
+miracle. And our reply to the levitators is just the same. Why should
+not your friend "levitate"? Fish are said to rise and sink in the
+water by altering the volume of an internal air-receptacle; and there
+may be many ways science, as yet, knows nothing of, by which we, who
+live at the bottom of an ocean of air, may do the same thing.
+Dialectic gas and wind appear to be by no means wanting among you, and
+why should not long practice in pneumatic philosophy have resulted in
+the internal generation of something a thousand times rarer than
+hydrogen, by which, in accordance with the most ordinary natural laws,
+you would not only rise to the ceiling and float there in
+quasi-angelic posture, but perhaps, as one of your feminine adepts is
+said to have done, flit swifter than train or telegram to
+"still-vexed Bermoothes," and twit Ariel, if he happens to be there,
+for a sluggard? We have not the presumption to deny the possibility of
+anything you affirm; only, as our brethren are particular about
+evidence, do give us as much to go upon as may save us from being
+roared down by their inextinguishable laughter.
+
+Enough of the realism which clings about "laws." There are plenty of
+other exemplifications of its vitality in modern science, but I will
+cite only one of them.
+
+This is the conception of "vital force" which comes straight from the
+philosophy of Aristotle. It is a fundamental proposition of that
+philosophy that a natural object is composed of two constituents--the
+one its matter, conceived as inert or even, to a certain extent,
+opposed to orderly and purposive motion; the other its form, conceived
+as a quasi-spiritual something, containing or conditioning the actual
+activities of the body and the potentiality of its possible
+activities.
+
+I am disposed to think that the prominence of this conception in
+Aristotle's theory of things arose from the circumstance that he was
+to begin with and throughout his life, devoted to biological studies.
+In fact it is a notion which must force itself upon the mind of any
+one who studies biological phenomena, without reference to general
+physics, as they now stand. Everybody who observes the obvious
+phenomena of the development of a seed into a tree, or of an egg into
+an animal, will note that a relatively formless mass of matter
+gradually grows, takes a definite shape and structure, and, finally,
+begins to perform actions which contribute towards a certain end,
+namely, the maintenance of the individual in the first place, and of
+the species in the second. Starting from the axiom that every event
+has a cause, we have here the _causa finalis_ manifested in the last
+set of phenomena, the _causa materialis_ and _formalis_ in the first,
+while the existence of a _causa efficiens_ within the seed or egg and
+its product, is a corollary from the phenomena of growth and
+metamorphosis, which proceed in unbroken succession and make up the
+life of the animal or plant.
+
+Thus, at starting, the egg or seed is matter having a "form" like all
+other material bodies. But this form has the peculiarity, in
+contradistinction to lower substantial "forms," that it is a power
+which constantly works towards an end by means of living organisation.
+
+So far as I know, Leibnitz is the only philosopher (at the same time a
+man of science, in the modern sense, of the first rank) who has noted
+that the modern conception of Force, as a sort of atmosphere
+enveloping the particles of bodies, and having potential or actual
+activity, is simply a new name for the Aristotelian Form.[19] In
+modern biology, up till within quite recent times, the Aristotelian
+conception held undisputed sway; living matter was endowed with "vital
+force," and that accounted for everything. Whosoever was not satisfied
+with that explanation was treated to that very "plain
+argument"--"confound you eternally"--wherewith Lord Peter overcomes
+the doubts of his brothers in the "Tale of a Tub." "Materialist" was
+the mildest term applied to him--fortunate if he escaped pelting with
+"infidel" and "atheist." There may be scientific Rip Van Winkles
+about, who still hold by vital force; but among those biologists who
+have not been asleep for the last quarter of a century "vital force"
+no longer figures in the vocabulary of science. It is a patent
+survival of realism; the generalisation from experience that all
+living bodies exhibit certain activities of a definite character is
+made the basis of the notion that every living body contains an
+entity, "vital force," which is assumed to be the cause of those
+activities.
+
+It is remarkable, in looking back, to notice to what an extent this
+and other survivals of scholastic realism arrested or, at any rate,
+impeded the application of sound scientific principles to the
+investigation of biological phenomena. When I was beginning to think
+about these matters, the scientific world was occasionally agitated by
+discussions respecting the nature of the "species" and "genera" of
+Naturalists, of a different order from the disputes of a later time.
+I think most were agreed that a "species" was something which existed
+objectively, somehow or other, and had been created by a Divine fiat.
+As to the objective reality of genera, there was a good deal of
+difference of opinion. On the other hand, there were a few who could
+see no objective reality in anything but individuals, and looked upon
+both species and genera as hypostatised universals. As for myself, I
+seem to have unconsciously emulated William of Occam, inasmuch as
+almost the first public discourse I ever ventured upon, dealt with
+"Animal Individuality," and its tendency was to fight the Nominalist
+battle even in that quarter.
+
+Realism appeared in still stranger forms at the time to which I refer.
+The community of plan which is observable in each great group of
+animals was hypostatised into a Platonic idea with the appropriate
+name of "archetype," and we were told, as a disciple of Philo-Judaeus
+might have told us, that this realistic figment was "the archetypal
+light" by which Nature has been guided amidst the "wreck of worlds."
+So, again, another naturalist, who had no less earned a well-deserved
+reputation by his contributions to positive knowledge, put forward a
+theory of the production of living things which, as nearly as the
+increase of knowledge allowed, was a reproduction of the doctrine
+inculcated by the Jewish Cabbala.
+
+Annexing the archetype notion, and carrying it to its full logical
+consequence, the author of this theory conceived that the species of
+animals and plants were so many incarnations of the thoughts of
+God--material representations of Divine ideas--during the particular
+period of the world's history at which they existed. But, under the
+influence of the embryological and palaeontological discoveries of
+modern times, which had already lent some scientific support to the
+revived ancient theories of cosmical evolution or emanation, the
+ingenious author of this speculation, while denying and repudiating
+the ordinary theory of evolution by successive modification of
+individuals, maintained and endeavoured to prove the occurrence of a
+progressive modification in the divine ideas of successive epochs.
+
+On the foundation of a supposed elevation of organisation in the whole
+living population of any epoch, as compared with that of its
+predecessor, and a supposed complete difference in species between the
+populations of any two epochs (neither of which suppositions has stood
+the test of further inquiry), the author of this speculation based his
+conclusion that the Creator had, so to speak, improved upon his
+thoughts as time went on; and that, as each such amended scheme of
+creation came up, the embodiment of the earlier divine thoughts was
+swept away by a universal catastrophe, and an incarnation of the
+improved ideas took its place. Only after the last such "wreck" thus
+brought about, did the embodiment of a divine thought, in the shape of
+the first man, make its appearance as the _ne plus ultra_ of the
+cosmogonical process.
+
+I imagine that Louis Agassiz, the genial backwoodsman of the science
+of my young days, who did more to open out new tracks in the
+scientific forest than most men, would have been much surprised to
+learn that he was preaching the doctrine of the Cabbala, pure and
+simple. According to this modification of Neoplatonism by contact with
+Hebrew speculation, the divine essence is unknowable--without form or
+attribute; but the interval between it and the world of sense is
+filled by intelligible entities, which are nothing but the familiar
+hypostatised abstractions of the realists. These have emanated, like
+immense waves of light, from the divine centre, and, as ten
+consecutive zones of Sephiroth, form the universe. The farther away
+from the centre, the more the primitive light wanes, until the
+periphery ends in those mere negations, darkness and evil, which are
+the essence of matter. On this, the divine agency transmitted through
+the Sephiroth operates after the fashion of the Aristotelian forms,
+and, at first, produces the lowest of a series of worlds. After a
+certain duration the primitive world is demolished and its fragments
+used up in making a better; and this process is repeated, until at
+length a final world, with man for its crown and finish, makes its
+appearance. It is needless to trace the process of retrogressive
+metamorphosis by which, through the agency of the Messiah, the steps
+of the process of evolution here sketched are retraced. Sufficient has
+been said to prove that the extremist realism current in the
+philosophy of the thirteenth century can be fully matched by the
+speculations of our own time.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [15] There is no exaggeration in this brief and summary view
+          of the Catholic cosmos. But it would be unfair to leave it
+          to be supposed that the Reformation made any essential
+          alteration, except perhaps for the worse, in that cosmology
+          which called itself "Christian." The protagonist of the
+          Reformation, from whom the whole of the Evangelical sects
+          are lineally descended, states the case with that plainness
+          of speech, not to say brutality, which characterised him.
+          Luther says that man is a beast of burden who only moves as
+          his rider orders; sometimes God rides him, and sometimes
+          Satan. "Sic voluntas humana in medio posita est, ceu
+          jumentum; si insederit Deus, vult et vadit, quo vult
+          Deus.... Si insederit Satan, vult et vadit, quo vult Satan;
+          nec est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere, aut eum
+          quaerere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum obtinendum et
+          possidendum" (_De Servo Arbitrio_, M. Lutheri Opera, ed.
+          1546, t. ii. p. 468). One may hear substantially the same
+          doctrine preached in the parks and at street-corners by
+          zealous volunteer missionaries of Evangelicism, any Sunday,
+          in modern London. Why these doctrines, which are conspicuous
+          by their absence in the four Gospels, should arrogate to
+          themselves the title of Evangelical, in contradistinction to
+          Catholic, Christianity, may well perplex the impartial
+          inquirer, who, if he were obliged to choose between the two,
+          might naturally prefer that which leaves the poor beast of
+          burden a little freedom of choice.
+
+     [16] I say "so-called" not by way of offence, but as a
+          protest against the monstrous assumption that Catholic
+          Christianity is explicitly or implicitly contained in any
+          trustworthy record of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
+
+     [17] It may be desirable to observe that, in modern times,
+          the term "Realism" has acquired a signification wholly
+          different from that which attached to it in the middle ages.
+          We commonly use it as the contrary of Idealism. The Idealist
+          holds that the phenomenal world has only a subjective
+          existence, the Realist that it has an objective existence. I
+          am not aware that any mediaeval philosopher was an Idealist
+          in the sense in which we apply the term to Berkeley. In
+          fact, the cardinal defect of their speculations lies in
+          their oversight of the considerations which lead to
+          Idealism. If many of them regarded the material world as a
+          negation, it was an active negation; not zero, but a minus
+          quantity.
+
+     [18] At any rate a catastrophe greater than the flood,
+          which, as I observe with interest, is as calmly assumed by
+          the preacher to be an historical event as if science had
+          never had a word to say on that subject!
+
+     [19] "Les formes des anciens ou Entelechies ne sont autre
+          chose que les forces" (Leibnitz, _Lettre au Pere Bouvet_,
+          1697).
+
+
+
+
+III: SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE
+
+[1887]
+
+
+In the opening sentences of a contribution to the last number of this
+Review,[20] the Duke of Argyll has favoured me with a lecture on the
+proprieties of controversy, to which I should be disposed to listen
+with more docility if his Grace's precepts appeared to me to be based
+upon rational principles, or if his example were more exemplary.
+
+With respect to the latter point, the Duke has thought fit to entitle
+his article "Professor Huxley on Canon Liddon," and thus forces into
+prominence an element of personality, which those who read the paper
+which is the object of the Duke's animadversions will observe I have
+endeavoured, most carefully, to avoid. My criticisms dealt with a
+report of a sermon, published in a newspaper, and thereby addressed to
+all the world. Whether that sermon was preached by A or B was not a
+matter of the smallest consequence; and I went out of my way to
+absolve the learned divine to whom the discourse was attributed from
+the responsibility for statements which, for anything I knew to the
+contrary, might contain imperfect, or inaccurate, representations of
+his views. The assertion that I had the wish, or was beset, by any
+"temptation to attack" Canon Liddon is simply contrary to fact.
+
+But suppose that if, instead of sedulously avoiding even the
+appearance of such attack, I had thought fit to take a different
+course; suppose that, after satisfying myself that the eminent
+clergyman whose name is paraded by the Duke of Argyll had really
+uttered the words attributed to him from the pulpit of St. Paul's,
+what right would any one have to find fault with my action on grounds
+either of justice, expediency, or good taste?
+
+Establishment has its duties as well as its rights. The clergy of a
+State Church enjoy many advantages over those of unprivileged and
+unendowed religious persuasions; but they lie under a correlative
+responsibility to the State, and to every member of the body politic.
+I am not aware that any sacredness attaches to sermons. If preachers
+stray beyond the doctrinal limits set by lay lawyers, the Privy
+Council will see to it; and, if they think fit to use their pulpits
+for the promulgation of literary, or historical, or scientific errors,
+it is not only the right, but the duty, of the humblest layman, who
+may happen to be better informed, to correct the evil effects of such
+perversion of the opportunities which the State affords them; and such
+misuse of the authority which its support lends them. Whatever else it
+may claim to be, in its relations with the State, the Established
+Church is a branch of the Civil Service; and, for those who repudiate
+the ecclesiastical authority of the clergy, they are merely civil
+servants, as much responsible to the English people for the proper
+performance of their duties as any others.
+
+The Duke of Argyll tells us that the "work and calling" of the clergy
+prevent them from "pursuing disputation as others can." I wonder if
+his Grace ever reads the so-called "religious" newspapers. It is not
+an occupation which I should commend to any one who wishes to employ
+his time profitably; but a very short devotion to this exercise will
+suffice to convince him that the "pursuit of disputation," carried to
+a degree of acrimony and vehemence unsurpassed in lay controversies,
+seems to be found quite compatible with the "work and calling" of a
+remarkably large number of the clergy.
+
+Finally, it appears to me that nothing can be in worse taste than the
+assumption that a body of English gentlemen can, by any possibility,
+desire that immunity from criticism which the Duke of Argyll claims
+for them. Nothing would be more personally offensive to me than the
+supposition that I shirked criticism, just or unjust, of any lecture I
+ever gave. I should be utterly ashamed of myself if, when I stood up
+as an instructor of others, I had not taken every pains to assure
+myself of the truth of that which I was about to say; and I should
+feel myself bound to be even more careful with a popular assembly, who
+would take me more or less on trust, than with an audience of
+competent and critical experts.
+
+I decline to assume that the standard of morality, in these matters,
+is lower among the clergy than it is among scientific men. I refuse to
+think that the priest who stands up before a congregation, as the
+minister and interpreter of the Divinity, is less careful in his
+utterances, less ready to meet adverse comment, than the layman who
+comes before his audience, as the minister and interpreter of nature.
+Yet what should we think of the man of science who, when his ignorance
+or his carelessness was exposed, whined about the want of delicacy of
+his critics, or pleaded his "work and calling" as a reason for being
+let alone?
+
+No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to
+dispense with the tonic of criticism. Nothing has done more harm to
+the clergy than the practice, too common among laymen, of regarding
+them, when in the pulpit, as a sort of chartered libertines, whose
+divagations are not to be taken seriously. And I am well assured that
+the distinguished divine, to whom the sermon is attributed, is the
+last person who would desire to avail himself of the dishonouring
+protection which has been superfluously thrown over him.
+
+So much for the lecture on propriety. But the Duke of Argyll, to whom
+the hortatory style seems to come naturally, does me the honour to
+make my sayings the subjects of a series of other admonitions, some on
+philosophical, some on geological, some on biological topics. I can
+but rejoice that the Duke's authority in these matters is not always
+employed to show that I am ignorant of them; on the contrary, I meet
+with an amount of agreement, even of approbation, for which I proffer
+such gratitude as may be due, even if that gratitude is sometimes
+almost overshadowed by surprise.
+
+I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the Duke of Argyll, who
+professes to intervene on behalf of the preacher, does really, like
+another Balaam, bless me altogether in respect of the main issue.
+
+I denied the justice of the preacher's ascription to men of science of
+the doctrine that miracles are incredible, because they are violations
+of natural law; and the Duke of Argyll says that he believes my
+"denial to be well-founded. The preacher was answering an objection
+which has now been generally abandoned." Either the preacher knew this
+or he did not know it. It seems to me, as a mere lay teacher, to be a
+pity that the "great dome of St. Paul's" should have been made to
+"echo" (if so be that such stentorian effects were really produced) a
+statement which, admitting the first alternative, was unfair, and,
+admitting the second, was ignorant.[21]
+
+Having thus sacrified one half of the preacher's arguments, the Duke
+of Argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other half. It
+appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence of those
+events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence
+of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary occasional
+consequences of uniform changes. Whence I conclude, his Grace agrees
+with me, that the talk about royal laws "wrecking" ordinary laws may
+be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense.
+
+And now comes a further surprise. After having given these superfluous
+stabs to the slain body of the preacher's argument, my good ally
+remarks, with magnificent calmness: "So far, then, the preacher and
+the professor are at one." "Let them smoke the calumet." By all means:
+smoke would be the most appropriate symbol of this wonderful attempt
+to cover a retreat. After all, the Duke has come to bury the preacher,
+not to praise him; only he makes the funeral obsequies look as much
+like a triumphal procession as possible.
+
+So far as the questions between the preacher and myself are concerned,
+then, I may feel happy. The authority of the Duke of Argyll is ranged
+on my side. But the Duke has raised a number of other questions, with
+respect to which I fear I shall have to dispense with his
+support--nay, even be compelled to differ from him as much, or more,
+than I have done about his Grace's new rendering of the "benefit of
+clergy."
+
+In discussing catastrophes, the Duke indulges in statements, partly
+scientific, partly anecdotic, which appear to me to be somewhat
+misleading. We are told, to begin with, that Sir Charles Lyell's
+doctrine respecting the proper mode of interpreting the facts of
+geology (which is commonly called uniformitarianism) "does not hold
+its head quite so high as it once did." That is great news indeed.
+But is it true? All I can say is that I am aware of nothing that has
+happened of late that can in any way justify it; and my opinion is,
+that the body of Lyell's doctrine, as laid down in that great work,
+"The Principles of Geology," whatever may have happened to its head,
+is a chief and permanent constituent of the foundations of geological
+science.
+
+But this question cannot he advantageously discussed, unless we take
+some pains to discriminate between the essential part of the
+uniformitarian doctrine and its accessories; and it does not appear
+that the Duke of Argyll has carried his studies of geological
+philosophy so far as this point. For he defines uniformitarianism to
+be the assumption of the "extreme slowness and perfect continuity of
+all geological changes."
+
+What "perfect continuity" may mean in this definition, I am by no
+means sure; but I can only imagine that it signifies the absence of
+any break in the course of natural order during the millions of years,
+the lapse of which is recorded by geological phenomena.
+
+Is the Duke of Argyll prepared to say that any geologist of authority,
+at the present day, believes that there is the slightest evidence of
+the occurrence of supernatural intervention, during the long ages of
+which the monuments are preserved to us in the crust of the earth? And
+if he is not, in what sense has this part of the uniformitarian
+doctrine, as he defines it, lowered its pretensions to represent
+scientific truth?
+
+As to the "extreme slowness of all geological changes," it is simply a
+popular error to regard that as, in any wise, a fundamental and
+necessary dogma of uniformitarianism. It is extremely astonishing to
+me that any one who has carefully studied Lyell's great work can have
+so completely failed to appreciate its purport, which yet is "writ
+large" on the very title-page: "The Principles of Geology, being an
+attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by
+reference to causes now in operation." The essence of Lyell's doctrine
+is here written so that those who run may read; and it has nothing to
+do with the quickness or slowness of the past changes of the earth's
+surface; except in so far as existing analogous changes may go on
+slowly, and therefore create a presumption in favour of the slowness
+of past changes.
+
+With that epigrammatic force which characterises his style, Buffon
+wrote, nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, in his famous "Theorie de
+la Terre": "Pour juger de ce qui est arrive, et meme de ce qui
+arrivera, nous n'avons qu'a examiner ce qui arrive." The key of the
+past, as of the future, is to be sought in the present; and, only when
+known causes of change have been shown to be insufficient, have we any
+right to have recourse to unknown causes. Geology is as much a
+historical science as archaeology; and I apprehend that all sound
+historical investigation rests upon this axiom. It underlay all
+Hutton's work and animated Lyell and Scope in their successful efforts
+to revolutionise the geology of half a century ago.
+
+There is no antagonism whatever, and there never was, between the
+belief in the views which had their chief and unwearied advocate in
+Lyell and the belief in the occurrence of catastrophes. The first
+edition of Lyell's "Principles," published in 1830, lies before me;
+and a large part of the first volume is occupied by an account of
+volcanic, seismic, and diluvial catastrophes which have occurred
+within the historical period. Moreover, the author, over and over
+again, expressly draws the attention of his readers to the consistency
+of catastrophes with his doctrine.
+
+     Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed
+     within the last three thousand years the devastation by
+     deluge of a large continent, yet, as we may predict the
+     future occurrence of such catastrophes, we are authorized to
+     regard them as part of the present order of nature, and they
+     may be introduced into geological speculations respecting
+     the past, provided that we do not imagine them to have been
+     more frequent or general than we expect them to be in time
+     to come (vol. i. p. 89).
+
+Again:--
+
+     If we regard each of the causes separately, which we know to
+     be at present the most instrumental in remodelling the state
+     of the surface, we shall find that we must expect each to
+     be in action for thousands of years, without producing any
+     extensive alterations in the habitable surface, and then to
+     give rise, during a very brief period, to important
+     revolutions (vol. ii. p. 161).[22]
+
+Lyell quarrelled with the catastrophists then, by no means because
+they assumed that catastrophes occur and have occurred, but because
+they had got into the habit of calling on their god Catastrophe to
+help them, when they ought to have been putting their shoulders to the
+wheel of observation of the present course of nature, in order to help
+themselves out of their difficulties. And geological science has
+become what it is, chiefly because geologists have gradually accepted
+Lyell's doctrine and followed his precepts.
+
+So far as I know anything about the matter, there is nothing that can
+be called proof, that the causes of geological phenomena operated more
+intensely or more rapidly, at any time between the older tertiary and
+the oldest palaeozoic epochs than they have done between the older
+tertiary epoch and the present day. And if that is so, uniformitarianism,
+even as limited by Lyell,[23] has no call to lower its crest. But if
+the facts were otherwise, the position Lyell took up remains
+impregnable. He did not say that the geological operations of nature
+were never more rapid, or more vast, than they are now; what he did
+maintain is the very different proposition that there is no good
+evidence of anything of the kind. And that proposition has not yet
+been shown to be incorrect.
+
+I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the "Principles of
+Geology" in my young days; and, long before the year 1856, my mind was
+familiar with the truth that "the doctrine of uniformity is not
+incompatible with great and sudden changes," which, as I have shown,
+is taught _totidem verbis_ in that work. Even had it been possible for
+me to shut my eyes to the sense of what I had read in the
+"Principles," Whewell's "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,"
+published in 1840, a work with which I was also tolerably familiar,
+must have opened them. For the always acute, if not always profound,
+author, in arguing against Lyell's uniformitarianism, expressly points
+out that it does not in any way contravene the occurrence of
+catastrophes.
+
+     With regard to such occurrences [earthquakes, deluges,
+     etc.], terrible as they appear at the time, they may not
+     much affect the average rate of change: there may be a
+     _cycle_, though an irregular one, of rapid and slow change:
+     and if such cycles go on succeeding each other, we may still
+     call the order of nature uniform, notwithstanding the
+     periods of violence which it involves.[24]
+
+The reader who has followed me through this brief chapter of the
+history of geological philosophy will probably find the following
+passage in the paper of the Duke of Argyll to be not a little
+remarkable:--
+
+     Many years ago, when I had the honor of being President of
+     the British Association,[25] I ventured to point out, in the
+     presence and in the hearing of that most distinguished man
+     [Sir C. Lyell] that the doctrine of uniformity was not
+     incompatible with great and sudden changes, since cycles of
+     these and other cycles of comparative rest might well be
+     constituent parts of that uniformity which he asserted.
+     Lyell did not object to this extended interpretation of his
+     own doctrine, and indeed expressed to me his entire
+     concurrence.
+
+I should think he did; for, as I have shown, there was nothing in it
+that Lyell himself had not said, six-and-twenty years before, and
+enforced, three years before; and it is almost verbally identical
+with the view of uniformitarianism taken by Whewell, sixteen years
+before, in a work with which, one would think, that any one who
+undertakes to discuss the philosophy of science should be familiar.
+
+Thirty years have elapsed since the beginner of 1856 persuaded himself
+that he enlightened the foremost geologist of his time, and one of the
+most acute and far-seeing men of science of any time, as to the scope
+of the doctrines which the veteran philosopher had grown gray in
+promulgating; and the Duke of Argyll's acquaintance with the
+literature of geology has not, even now, become sufficiently profound
+to dissipate that pleasant delusion.
+
+If the Duke of Argyll's guidance in that branch of physical science,
+with which alone he has given evidence of any practical acquaintance,
+is thus unsafe, I may breathe more freely in setting my opinion
+against the authoritative deliverances of his Grace about matters
+which lie outside the province of geology.
+
+And here the Duke's paper offers me such a wealth of opportunities
+that choice becomes embarrassing. I must bear in mind the good old
+adage, "Non multa sed multum." Tempting as it would be to follow the
+Duke through his labyrinthine misunderstandings of the ordinary
+terminology of philosophy and to comment on the curious
+unintelligibility which hangs about his frequent outpourings of
+fervid language, limits of space oblige me to restrict myself to those
+points, the discussion of which may help to enlighten the public in
+respect of matters of more importance than the competence of my Mentor
+for the task which he has undertaken.
+
+I am not sure when the employment of the word Law, in the sense in
+which we speak of laws of nature, commenced, but examples of it may be
+found in the works of Bacon, Descartes, and Spinoza. Bacon employs
+"Law" as the equivalent of "Form," and I am inclined to think that he
+may be responsible for a good deal of the confusion that has
+subsequently arisen; but I am not aware that the term is used by other
+authorities, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in any other
+sense than that of "rule" or "definite order" of the coexistence of
+things or succession of events in nature. Descartes speaks of "regles,
+que je nomme les lois de la nature." Leibnitz says "loi ou regle
+generale," as if he considered the terms interchangeable.
+
+The Duke of Argyll, however, affirms that the "law of gravitation" as
+put forth by Newton was something more than the statement of an
+observed order. He admits that Kepler's three laws "were an observed
+order of facts and nothing more." As to the law of gravitation, "it
+contains an element which Kepler's laws did not contain, even an
+element of causation, the recognition of which belongs to a higher
+category of intellectual conceptions than that which is concerned in
+the mere observation and record of separate and apparently unconnected
+facts." There is hardly a line in these paragraphs which appears to me
+to be indisputable. But, to confine myself to the matter in hand, I
+cannot conceive that any one who had taken ordinary pains to acquaint
+himself with the real nature of either Kepler's or Newton's work could
+have written them. That the labours of Kepler, of all men in the
+world, should be called "mere observation and record," is truly
+wonderful. And any one who will look into the "Principia," or the
+"Optics," or the "Letters to Bentley," will see, even if he has no
+more special knowledge of the topics discussed than I have, that
+Newton over and over again insisted that he had nothing to do with
+gravitation as a physical cause, and that when he used the terms
+attraction, force, and the like, he employed them, as he says,
+"_mathematice_" and not "_physice_."
+
+     How these attractions [of gravity, magnetism, and
+     electricity] may be performed, I do not here consider. What
+     I call attraction may be performed by impulse or by some
+     other means unknown to me. I use that word here to signify
+     only in a general way any force by which bodies tend towards
+     one another, whatever be the cause.[26]
+
+According to my reading of the best authorities upon the history of
+science, Newton discovered neither gravitation, nor the law of
+gravitation; nor did he pretend to offer more than a conjecture as to
+the causation of gravitation. Moreover, his assertion that the notion
+of a body acting where it is not, is one that no competent thinker
+could entertain, is antagonistic to the whole current conception of
+attractive and repulsive forces, and therefore of "the attractive
+force of gravitation." What, then, was that labour of unsurpassed
+magnitude and excellence and of immortal influence which Newton did
+perform? In the first place, Newton defined the laws, rules, or
+observed order of the phenomena of motion, which come under our daily
+observation, with greater precision than had been before attained;
+and, by following out, with marvellous power and subtlety, the
+mathematical consequences of these rules, he almost created the modern
+science of pure mechanics. In the second place, applying exactly the
+same method to the explication of the facts of astronomy as that which
+was applied a century and a half later to the facts of geology by
+Lyell, he set himself to solve the following problem. Assuming that
+all bodies, free to move, tend to approach one another as the earth
+and the bodies on it do; assuming that the strength of that tendency
+is directly as the mass and inversely as the squares of the distances;
+assuming that the laws of motion, determined for terrestrial bodies,
+hold good throughout the universe; assuming that the planets and
+their satellites were created and placed at their observed mean
+distances, and that each received a certain impulse from the Creator;
+will the form of the orbits, the varying rates of motion of the
+planets, and the ratio between those rates and their distances from
+the sun, which must follow by mathematical reasoning from these
+premisses, agree with the order of facts determined by Kepler and
+others, or not?
+
+Newton, employing mathematical methods which are the admiration of
+adepts, but which no one but himself appears to have been able to use
+with ease, not only answered this question in the affirmative, but
+stayed not his constructive genius before it had founded modern
+physical astronomy.
+
+The historians of mechanical and of astronomical science appear to be
+agreed that he was the first person who clearly and distinctly put
+forth the hypothesis that the phenomena comprehended under the general
+name of "gravity" follow the same order throughout the universe, and
+that all material bodies exhibit these phenomena; so that, in this
+sense, the idea of universal gravitation may, doubtless, be properly
+ascribed to him.
+
+Newton proved that the laws of Kepler were particular consequences of
+the laws of motion and the law of gravitation--in other words, the
+reason of the first lay in the two latter. But to talk of the law of
+gravitation alone as the reason of Kepler's laws, and still more as
+standing in any causal relation to Kepler's laws, is simply a misuse
+of language. It would really be interesting if the Duke of Argyll
+would explain how he proposes to set about showing that the elliptical
+form of the orbits of the planets, the constant area described by the
+radius vector, and the proportionality of the squares of the periodic
+times to the cubes of the distances from the sun, are either caused by
+the "force of gravitation" or deducible from the "law of gravitation."
+I conceive that it would be about as apposite to say that the various
+compounds of nitrogen with oxygen are caused by chemical attraction
+and deducible from the atomic theory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Newton assuredly lent no shadow of support to the modern
+pseudo-scientific philosophy which confounds laws with causes. I have
+not taken the trouble to trace out this commonest of fallacies to its
+first beginning; but I was familiar with it in full bloom more than
+thirty years ago, in a work which had a great vogue in its day--the
+"Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation"--of which the first
+edition was published in 1844.
+
+It is full of apt and forcible illustrations of pseudo-scientific
+realism. Consider, for example, this gem serene. When a boy who has
+climbed a tree loses his hold of the branch, "the law of gravitation
+unrelentingly pulls him to the ground, and then he is hurt," whereby
+the Almighty is quite relieved from any responsibility for the
+accident. Here is the "law of gravitation" acting as a cause in a way
+quite in accordance with the Duke of Argyll's conception of it. In
+fact, in the mind of the author of the "Vestiges," "laws" are
+existences intermediate between the Creator and His works, like the
+"ideas" of the Platonisers or the Logos of the Alexandrians.[27] I may
+cite a passage which is quite in the vein of Philo:--
+
+     We have seen powerful evidences that the construction of
+     this globe and its associates; and, inferentially, that of
+     all the other globes in space, was the result, not of any
+     immediate or personal exertion on the part of the Deity, but
+     of natural laws which are the expression of His will. What
+     is to hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also
+     a result of natural laws which are in like manner an
+     expression of His will? (p. 154, 1st edition).
+
+And creation "operating by law" is constantly cited as relieving the
+Creator from trouble about insignificant details.
+
+I am perplexed to picture to myself the state of mind which accepts
+these verbal juggleries. It is intelligible that the Creator should
+operate according to such rules as he might think fit to lay down for
+himself (and therefore according to law); but that would leave the
+operation of his will just as much a direct personal act as it would
+be under any other circumstances. I can also understand that (as in
+Leibnitz's caricature of Newton's views) the Creator might have made
+the cosmical machine, and, after setting it going, have left it to
+itself till it needed repair. But then, by the supposition, his
+personal responsibility would have been involved in all that it did;
+just as much as a dynamiter is responsible for what happens, when he
+has set his machine going and left it to explode.
+
+The only hypothesis which gives a sort of mad consistency to the
+Vestigiarian's views is the supposition that laws are a kind of angels
+or demiurgoi, who, being supplied with the Great Architect's plan,
+were permitted to settle the details among themselves. Accepting this
+doctrine, the conception of royal laws and plebeian laws, and of those
+more than Homeric contests in which the big laws "wreck" the little
+ones, becomes quite intelligible. And, in fact, the honour of the
+paternity of those remarkable ideas which come into full flower in the
+preacher's discourse must, so far as my imperfect knowledge goes, be
+attributed to the author of the "Vestiges."
+
+But the author of the "Vestiges" is not the only writer who is
+responsible for the current pseudo-scientific mystifications which
+hang about the term "law." When I wrote my paper about "Scientific and
+Pseudo-Scientific Realism," I had not read a work by the Duke of
+Argyll, "The Reign of Law," which, I believe, has enjoyed, possibly
+still enjoys, a widespread popularity. But the vivacity of the Duke's
+attack led me to think it possible that criticisms directed elsewhere
+might have come home to him. And, in fact, I find that the second
+chapter of the work in question, which is entitled "Law; its
+definitions," is, from my point of view, a sort of "summa" of
+pseudo-scientific philosophy. It will be worth while to examine it in
+some detail.
+
+In the first place, it is to be noted that the author of the "Reign of
+Law" admits that "law," in many cases, means nothing more than the
+statement of the order in which facts occur, or, as he says, "an
+observed order of facts" (p. 66). But his appreciation of the value of
+accuracy of expression does not hinder him from adding, almost in the
+same breath, "In this sense the laws of nature are simply those facts
+of nature which recur according to rule" (p. 66). Thus "laws," which
+were rightly said to be the statement of an order of facts in one
+paragraph, are declared to be the facts themselves in the next.
+
+We are next told that, though it may be customary and permissible to
+use "law" in the sense of a statement of the order of facts, this is a
+low use of the word; and, indeed, two pages farther on, the writer,
+flatly contradicting himself, altogether denies its admissibility.
+
+     An observed order of facts, to be entitled to the rank of a
+     law, must be an order so constant and uniform as to indicate
+     necessity, and necessity can only arise out of the action
+     of some compelling force (p. 68).
+
+This is undoubtedly one of the most singular propositions that I have
+ever met with in a professedly scientific work, and its rarity is
+embellished by another direct self-contradiction which it implies. For
+on the preceding page (67), when the Duke of Argyll is speaking of the
+laws of Kepler, which he admits to be laws, and which are types of
+that which men of science understand by "laws," he says that they are
+"simply and purely an order of facts." Moreover, he adds: "A very
+large proportion of the laws of every science are laws of this kind
+and in this sense."
+
+If, according to the Duke of Argyll's admission, law is understood, in
+this sense, thus widely and constantly by scientific authorities,
+where is the justification for his unqualified assertion that such
+statements of the observed order of facts are not "entitled to the
+rank" of laws?
+
+But let us examine the consequences of the really interesting
+proposition I have just quoted. I presume that it is a law of nature
+that "a straight line is the shortest distance between two points."
+This law affirms the constant association of a certain fact of form
+with a certain fact of dimension. Whether the notion of necessity
+which attaches to it has an _a priori_, or an _a posteriori_ origin is
+a question not relevant to the present discussion. But I would beg to
+be informed, if it is necessary, where is the "compelling force" out
+of which the necessity arises; and further, if it is not necessary,
+whether it loses the character of a law of nature?
+
+I take it to be the law of nature, based on unexceptionable evidence,
+that the mass of matter remains unchanged, whatever chemical or other
+modifications it may undergo. This law is one of the foundations of
+chemistry. But it is by no means necessary. It is quite possible to
+imagine that the mass of matter should vary according to
+circumstances, as we know its weight does. Moreover, the determination
+of the "force" which makes mass constant (if there is any
+intelligibility in that form of words) would not, so far as I can see,
+confer any more validity on the law than it has now.
+
+There is a law of nature, so well vouched by experience, that all
+mankind, from pure logicians in search of examples to parish sextons
+in search of fees, confide in it. This is the law that "all men are
+mortal." It is simply a statement of the observed order of facts that
+all men sooner or later die. I am not acquainted with any law of
+nature which is more "constant and uniform" than this. But will any
+one tell me that death is "necessary"? Certainly there is no _a
+priori_ necessity in the case, for various men have been imagined to
+be immortal. And I should be glad to be informed of any "necessity"
+that can be deduced from biological considerations. It is quite
+conceivable, as has recently been pointed out, that some of the lowest
+forms of life may be immortal, after a fashion. However this may be, I
+would further ask, supposing "all men are mortal" to be a real law of
+nature, where and what is that to which, with any propriety, the title
+of "compelling force" of the law can be given?
+
+On page 69, the Duke of Argyll asserts that the law of gravitation "is
+a law in the sense, not merely of a rule, but of a cause." But this
+revival of the teaching of the "Vestiges" has already been examined
+and disposed of; and when the Duke of Argyll states that the "observed
+order" which Kepler had discovered was simply a necessary consequence
+of the force of "gravitation," I need not recapitulate the evidence
+which proves such a statement to be wholly fallacious. But it may be
+useful to say, once more, that, at this present moment, nobody knows
+anything about the existence of a "force" of gravitation apart from
+the fact; that Newton declared the ordinary notion of such force to be
+inconceivable; that various attempts have been made to account for the
+order of facts we call gravitation, without recourse to the notion of
+attractive force; that, if such a force exists, it is utterly
+incompetent to account for Kepler's laws, without taking into the
+reckoning a great number of other considerations; and, finally, that
+all we know about the "force" of gravitation, or any other so-called
+"force," is that it is a name for the hypothetical cause of an
+observed order of facts.
+
+Thus, when the Duke of Argyll says: "Force, ascertained according to
+some measure of its operation--this is indeed one of the definitions,
+but only one, of a scientific law" (p. 71) I reply that it is a
+definition which must be repudiated by every one who possesses an
+adequate acquaintance with either the facts, or the philosophy, of
+science, and be relegated to the limbo of pseudo-scientific fallacies.
+If the human mind has never entertained this notion of "force," nay,
+if it substituted bare invariable succession for the ordinary notion of
+causation, the idea of law, as the expression of a constantly-observed
+order, which generates a corresponding intensity of expectation in our
+minds, would have exactly the same value, and play its part in real
+science, exactly as it does now.
+
+It is needless to extend further the present excursus on the origin
+and history of modern pseudo-science. Under such high patronage as it
+has enjoyed, it has grown and flourished until, nowadays, it is
+becoming somewhat rampant. It has its weekly "Ephemerides," in which
+every new pseudo-scientific mare's-nest is hailed and belauded with
+the unconscious unfairness of ignorance; and an army of "reconcilers,"
+enlisted in its service, whose business seems to be to mix the black
+of dogma and the white of science into the neutral tint of what they
+call liberal theology.
+
+I remember that, not long after the publication of the "Vestiges," a
+shrewd and sarcastic countryman of the author defined it as "cauld
+kail made het again." A cynic might find amusement in the reflection
+that, at the present time, the principles and the methods of the
+much-vilified Vestigiarian are being "made het again"; and are not
+only "echoed by the dome of St. Paul's," but thundered from the castle
+of Inverary. But my turn of mind is not cynical, and I can but regret
+the waste of time and energy bestowed on the endeavour to deal with
+the most difficult problems of science, by those who have neither
+undergone the discipline, nor possess the information, which are
+indispensable to the successful issue of such an enterprise.
+
+I have already had occasion to remark that the Duke of Argyll's views
+of the conduct of controversy are different from mine; and this
+much-to-be lamented discrepancy becomes yet more accentuated when the
+Duke reaches biological topics. Anything that was good enough for Sir
+Charles Lyell, in his department of study, is certainly good enough
+for me in mine; and I by no means demur to being pedagogically
+instructed about a variety of matters with which it has been the
+business of my life to try to acquaint myself. But the Duke of Argyll
+is not content with favouring me with his opinions about my own
+business; he also answers for mine; and, at that point, really the
+worm must turn. I am told that "no one knows better than Professor
+Huxley" a variety of things which I really do not know; and I am said
+to be a disciple of that "Positive Philosophy" which I have, over and
+over again, publicly repudiated in language which is certainly not
+lacking in intelligibility whatever may be its other defects.
+
+I am told that I have been amusing myself with a "metaphysical
+exercitation or logomachy" (may I remark incidentally that these are
+not quite convertible terms?), when, to the best of my belief, I have
+been trying to expose a process of mystification, based upon the use
+of scientific language by writers who exhibit no sign of scientific
+training, of accurate scientific knowledge, or of clear ideas
+respecting the philosophy of science, which is doing very serious harm
+to the public. Naturally enough, they take the lion's skin of
+scientific phraseology for evidence that the voice which issues from
+beneath it is the voice of science, and I desire to relieve them from
+the consequences of their error.
+
+The Duke of Argyll asks, apparently with sorrow that it should be his
+duty to subject me to reproof--
+
+     What shall we say of a philosophy which confounds the
+     organic with the inorganic, and, refusing to take note of a
+     difference so profound, assumes to explain under one common
+     abstraction, the movements due to gravitation and the
+     movements due to the mind of man?
+
+To which I may fitly reply by another question: What shall we say to a
+controversialist who attributes to the subject of his attack opinions
+which are notoriously not his; and expresses himself in such a manner
+that it is obvious he is unacquainted with even the rudiments of that
+knowledge which is necessary to the discussion into which he has
+rushed?
+
+What line of my writing can the Duke of Argyll produce which confounds
+the organic with the inorganic?
+
+As to the latter half of the paragraph, I have to confess a doubt
+whether it has any definite meaning. But I imagine that the Duke is
+alluding to my assertion that the law of gravitation is nowise
+"suspended" or "defied" when a man lifts his arm; but that, under such
+circumstances, part of the store of energy in the universe operates on
+the arm at a mechanical advantage as against the operation of another
+part. I was simple enough to think that no one who had as much
+knowledge of physiology as is to be found in an elementary primer, or
+who had ever heard of the greatest physical generalisation of modern
+times--the doctrine of the conservation of energy--would dream of
+doubting my statement; and I was further simple enough to think that
+no one who lacked these qualifications would feel tempted to charge me
+with error. It appears that my simplicity is greater than my powers of
+imagination.
+
+The Duke of Argyll may not be aware of the fact, but it is
+nevertheless true, that when a man's arm is raised, in sequence to
+that state of consciousness we call a volition, the volition is not
+the immediate cause of the elevation of the arm. On the contrary, that
+operation is effected by a certain change of form, technically known
+as "contraction" in sundry masses of flesh, technically known as
+muscles, which are fixed to the bones of the shoulder in such a manner
+that, if these muscles contract, they must raise the arm. Now each of
+these muscles is a machine comparable, in a certain sense, to one of
+the donkey-engines of a steamship, but more complete, inasmuch as the
+source of its ability to change its form, or contract, lies within
+itself. Every time that, by contracting, the muscle does work, such as
+that involved in raising the arm, more or less of the material which
+it contains is used up, just as more or less of the fuel of a
+steam-engine is used up, when it does work. And I do not think there
+is a doubt in the mind of any competent physicist, or physiologist,
+that the work done in lifting the weight of the arm is the mechanical
+equivalent of a certain proportion of the energy set free by the
+molecular changes which take place in the muscle. It is further a
+tolerably well-based belief that this, and all other forms of energy,
+are mutually convertible; and, therefore, that they all come under
+that general law or statement of the order of facts, called the
+conservation of energy. And, as that certainly is an abstraction, so
+the view which the Duke of Argyll thinks so extremely absurd is really
+one of the commonplaces of physiology. But this Review is hardly an
+appropriate place for giving instruction in the elements of that
+science, and I content myself with recommending the Duke of Argyll to
+devote some study to Book II. chap. v. section 4 of my friend Dr.
+Foster's excellent text-book of Physiology (1st edition, 1877, p.
+321), which begins thus:--
+
+     Broadly speaking, the animal body is a machine for
+     converting potential into actual energy. The potential
+     energy is supplied by the food; this the metabolism of the
+     body converts into the actual energy of heat and mechanical
+     labour.
+
+There is no more difficult problem in the world than that of the
+relation of the state of consciousness, termed volition, to the
+mechanical work which frequently follows upon it. But no one can even
+comprehend the nature of the problem, who has not carefully studied
+the long series of modes of motion which, without a break, connect the
+energy which does that work with the general store of energy. The
+ultimate form of the problem is this: Have we any reason to believe
+that a feeling, or state of consciousness, is capable of directly
+affecting the motion of even the smallest conceivable molecule of
+matter? Is such a thing even conceivable? If we answer these questions
+in the negative, it follows that volition may be a sign, but cannot be
+a cause, of bodily motion. If we answer them in the affirmative, then
+states of consciousness become undistinguishable from material things;
+for it is the essential nature of matter to be the vehicle or
+substratum of mechanical energy.
+
+There is nothing new in all this. I have merely put into modern
+language the issue raised by Descartes more than two centuries ago.
+The philosophies of the Occasionalists, of Spinoza, of Malebranche, of
+modern idealism and modern materialism, have all grown out of the
+controversies which Cartesianism evoked. Of all this the
+pseudo-science of the present time appears to be unconscious;
+otherwise it would hardly content itself with "making het again" the
+pseudo-science of the past.
+
+In the course of these observations I have already had occasion to
+express my appreciation of the copious and perfervid eloquence which
+enriches the Duke of Argyll's pages. I am almost ashamed that a
+constitutional insensibility to the Sirenian charms of rhetoric has
+permitted me in wandering through these flowery meads, to be
+attracted, almost exclusively, to the bare places of fallacy and the
+stony grounds of deficient information, which are disguised, though
+not concealed, by these floral decorations. But, in his concluding
+sentences, the Duke soars into a Tyrtaean strain which roused even my
+dull soul.
+
+     It was high time, indeed, that some revolt should be raised
+     against that Reign of Terror which had come to be
+     established in the scientific world under the abuse of a
+     great name. Professor Huxley has not joined this revolt
+     openly, for as yet, indeed, it is only beginning to raise
+     its head. But more than once--and very lately--he has
+     uttered a warning voice against the shallow dogmatism that
+     has provoked it. The time is coming when that revolt will be
+     carried further. Higher interpretations will be established.
+     Unless I am much mistaken, they are already coming in sight
+     (p. 339).
+
+I have been living very much out of the world for the last two or
+three years, and when I read this denunciatory outburst, as of one
+filled with the spirit of prophecy, I said to myself, "Mercy upon us,
+what has happened? Can it be that X. and Y. (it would be wrong to
+mention the names of the vigorous young friends which occurred to me)
+are playing Danton and Robespierre; and that a guillotine is erected
+in the courtyard of Burlington House for the benefit of all
+anti-Darwinian Fellows of the Royal Society? Where are the secret
+conspirators against this tyranny, whom I am supposed to favour, and
+yet not have the courage to join openly? And to think of my poor
+oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, 'compelled to speak with bated
+breath' (p. 338) certainly for the first time in my thirty-odd years'
+acquaintance with him!" My alarm and horror at the supposition that
+while I had been fiddling (or at any rate physicking), my beloved Rome
+had been burning, in this fashion, may be imagined.
+
+I am sure the Duke of Argyll will be glad to hear that the anxiety he
+created was of extremely short duration. It is my privilege to have
+access to the best sources of information, and nobody in the
+scientific world can tell me anything about either the "Reign of
+Terror" or "the Revolt." In fact, the scientific world laughs most
+indecorously at the notion of the existence of either; and some are so
+lost to the sense of the scientific dignity, that they descend to the
+use of transatlantic slang, and call it a "bogus scare." As to my
+friend Mr. Herbert Spencer, I have every reason to know that, in the
+"Factors of Organic Evolution," he has said exactly what was in his
+mind, without any particular deference to the opinions of the person
+whom he is pleased to regard as his most dangerous critic and Devil's
+Advocate-General, and still less of any one else.
+
+I do not know whether the Duke of Argyll pictures himself as the
+Tallien of this imaginary revolt against a no less imaginary Reign of
+Terror. But if so, I most respectfully but firmly decline to join his
+forces. It is only a few weeks since I happened to read over again the
+first article which I ever wrote (now twenty-seven years ago) on the
+"Origin of Species," and I found nothing that I wished to modify in
+the opinions that are there expressed, though the subsequent vast
+accumulation of evidence in favour of Mr. Darwin's views would give me
+much to add. As is the case with all new doctrines, so with that of
+Evolution, the enthusiasm of advocates has sometimes tended to
+degenerate into fanaticism; and mere speculation has, at times,
+threatened to shoot beyond its legitimate bounds. I have occasionally
+thought it wise to warn the more adventurous spirits among us against
+these dangers, in sufficiently plain language; and I have sometimes
+jestingly said that I expected, if I lived long enough, to be looked
+on as a reactionary by some of my more ardent friends. But nothing
+short of midsummer madness can account for the fiction that I am
+waiting till it is safe to join openly a revolt, hatched by some
+person or persons unknown, against an intellectual movement with which
+I am in the most entire and hearty sympathy. It is a great many years
+since, at the outset of my career, I had to think seriously what life
+had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the
+chief good, for me, was freedom to learn, think, and say what I
+pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction, and have
+availed myself of the "rara temporum felicitas ubi sentire quae velis,
+et quae sentias dicere licet," which is now enjoyable, to the best of
+my ability; and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I
+should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the
+results of the line of action I have adopted.
+
+My career is at an end. I have
+
+    Warmed both hands before the fire of life;
+
+and nothing is left me, before I depart, but to help, or at any rate
+to abstain from hindering, the younger generation of men of science in
+doing better service to the cause we have at heart than I have been
+able to render.
+
+And yet, forsooth, I am supposed to be waiting for the signal of
+"revolt," which some fiery spirits among these young men are to raise
+before I dare express my real opinions concerning questions about
+which we older men had to fight, in the teeth of fierce public
+opposition and obloquy--of something which might almost justify even
+the grandiloquent epithet of a Reign of Terror--before our excellent
+successors had left school.
+
+It would appear that the spirit of pseudo-science has impregnated even
+the imagination of the Duke of Argyll. The scientific imagination
+always restrains itself within the limits of probability.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [20] _Nineteenth Century_, March, 1887.
+
+     [21] The Duke of Argyll speaks of the recent date of the
+          demonstration of the fallacy of the doctrine in
+          question. "Recent" is a relative term, but I may
+          mention that the question is fully discussed in my book
+          on _Hume_; which, if I may believe my publishers, has
+          been read by a good many people since it appeared in
+          1879. Moreover, I observe, from a note at page 89 of
+          _The Reign of Law_, a work to which I shall have
+          occasion to advert by and by, that the Duke of Argyll
+          draws attention to the circumstance that, so long ago
+          as 1866, the views which I hold on this subject were
+          well known. The Duke, in fact, writing about this time,
+          says, after quoting a phrase of mine: "The question of
+          miracles seems now to be admitted on all hands to be
+          simply a question of evidence." In science, we think
+          that a teacher who ignores views which have been
+          discussed _coram populo_ for twenty years, is hardly up
+          to the mark.
+
+     [22] See also vol. i. p. 460. In the ninth edition (1853),
+          published twenty-three years after the first. Lyell
+          deprives even the most careless reader of any excuse
+          for misunderstanding him: "So in regard to subterranean
+          movements, the theory of the perpetual uniformity of
+          the force which they exert on the earth-crust is quite
+          consistent with the admission of their alternate
+          development and suspension for indefinite periods
+          within limited geographical areas" (p. 187).
+
+     [23] A great many years ago (Presidential Address to the
+          Geological Society, 1869) I ventured to indicate that
+          which seemed to me to be the weak point, not in the
+          fundamental principles of uniformitarianism, but in
+          uniformitarianism as taught by Lyell. It lay, to my
+          mind, in the refusal by Hutton, and in a less degree by
+          Lyell, to look beyond the limits of the time recorded
+          by the stratified rocks. I said: "This attempt to
+          limit, at a particular point, the progress of inductive
+          and deductive reasoning from the things which are to
+          the things which were--this faithlessness to its own
+          logic, seems to me to have cost uniformitarianism the
+          place as the permanent form of geological speculation
+          which it might otherwise have held" (_Lay Sermons_, p.
+          260). The context shows that "uniformitarianism" here
+          means that doctrine, as limited in application by
+          Hutton and Lyell, and that what I mean by
+          "evolutionism" is consistent and thorough-going
+          uniformitarianism.
+
+     [24] _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i. p. 670.
+          New edition, 1847.
+
+     [25] At Glasgow in 1856.
+
+     [26] _Optics_, query 31.
+
+     [27] The author recognises this in his _Explanations_.
+
+
+
+
+IV: AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY
+
+[1887]
+
+
+If there is any truth in the old adage that a burnt child dreads the
+fire, I ought to be very loath to touch a sermon, while the memory of
+what befell me on a recent occasion, possibly not yet forgotten by the
+readers of the _Nineteenth Century_, is uneffaced. But I suppose that
+even the distinguished censor of that unheard-of audacity to which not
+even the newspaper report of a sermon is sacred, can hardly regard a
+man of science as either indelicate or presumptuous, if he ventures to
+offer some comments upon three discourses, specially addressed to the
+great assemblage of men of science which recently gathered at
+Manchester, by three bishops of the State Church. On my return to
+England not long ago, I found a pamphlet[28] containing a version,
+which I presume to be authorised, of these sermons, among the huge
+mass of letters and papers which had accumulated during two months'
+absence; and I have read them not only with attentive interest, but
+with a feeling of satisfaction which is quite new to me as a result of
+hearing, or reading, sermons. These excellent discourses, in fact,
+appear to me to signalise a new departure in the course adopted by
+theology towards science, and to indicate the possibility of bringing
+about an honourable _modus vivendi_ between the two. How far the three
+bishops speak as accredited representatives of the Church is a
+question to be considered by and by. Most assuredly, I am not
+authorised to represent any one but myself. But I suppose that there
+must be a good many people in the Church of the bishops' way of
+thinking; and I have reason to believe that, in the ranks of science,
+there are a good many persons who, more or less, share my views. And
+it is to these sensible people on both sides, as the bishops and I
+must needs think those who agree with us, that my present observations
+are addressed. They will probably be astonished to learn how
+insignificant, in principle, their differences are.
+
+It is impossible to read the discourses of the three prelates without
+being impressed by the knowledge which they display, and by the spirit
+of equity, I might say of generosity, towards science which pervades
+them. There is no trace of that tacit or open assumption that the
+rejection of theological dogmas, on scientific grounds, is due to
+moral perversity, which is the ordinary note of ecclesiastical
+homilies on this subject, and which makes them look so supremely silly
+to men whose lives have been spent in wrestling with these questions.
+There is no attempt to hide away real stumbling-blocks under
+rhetorical stucco; no resort to the _tu quoque_ device of setting
+scientific blunders against theological errors; no suggestion that an
+honest man may keep contradictory beliefs in separate pockets of his
+brain; no question that the method of scientific investigation is
+valid, whatever the results to which it may lead; and that the search
+after truth, and truth only, ennobles the searcher and leaves no doubt
+that his life, at any rate, is worth living. The Bishop of Carlisle
+declares himself pledged to the belief that "the advancement of
+science, the progress of human knowledge, is in itself a worthy aim of
+the greatest effort of the greatest minds."
+
+How often was it my fate, a quarter of a century ago, to see the whole
+artillery of the pulpit brought to bear upon the doctrine of evolution
+and its supporters! Any one unaccustomed to the amenities of
+ecclesiastical controversy would have thought we were too wicked to be
+permitted to live. But let us hear the Bishop of Bedford. After a
+perfectly frank statement of the doctrine of evolution and some of
+its obvious consequences, that learned prelate pleads, with all
+earnestness, against
+
+     a hasty denunciation of what _may_ be proved to have at
+     least some elements of truth in it, a contemptuous rejection
+     of theories which we _may_ some day learn to accept as
+     freely and with as little sense of inconsistency with God's
+     word as we now accept the theory of the earth's motion round
+     the sun, or the long duration of the geological epochs (p.
+     28).
+
+I do not see that the most convinced evolutionist could ask any one,
+whether cleric or layman, to say more than this; in fact, I do not
+think that any one has a right to say more, with respect to any
+question about which two opinions can he held, than that his mind is
+perfectly open to the force of evidence.
+
+There is another portion of the Bishop of Bedford's sermon which I
+think will be warmly appreciated by all honest and clear-headed men.
+He repudiates the views of those who say that theology and science
+
+     occupy wholly different spheres, and need in no way
+     intermeddle with each other. They revolve, as it were, in
+     different planes, and so never meet. Thus we may pursue
+     scientific studies with the utmost freedom and, at the same
+     time, may pay the most reverent regard to theology, having
+     no fears of collision, because allowing no points of contact
+     (p. 29).
+
+Surely every unsophisticated mind will heartily concur with the
+Bishop's remark upon this convenient refuge for the descendants of
+Mr. Facing-both-ways. "I have never been able to understand this
+position though I have often seen it assumed." Nor can any demurrer be
+sustained when the Bishop proceeds to point out that there are, and
+must be, various points of contact between theological and natural
+science, and therefore that it is foolish to ignore or deny the
+existence of as many dangers of collision.
+
+Finally, the Bishop of Manchester freely admits the force of the
+objections which have been raised, on scientific grounds, to prayer,
+and attempts to turn them by arguing that the proper objects of prayer
+are not physical but spiritual. He tells us that natural accidents and
+moral misfortunes are not to be taken for moral judgments of God; he
+admits the propriety of the application of scientific methods to the
+investigation of the origin and growth of religions; and he is as
+ready to recognise the process of evolution there, as in the physical
+world. Mark the following striking passage:--
+
+     And how utterly all the common objections to Divine
+     revelation vanish away when they are set in the light of
+     this theory of a spiritual progression. Are we reminded that
+     there prevailed, in those earlier days, views of the nature
+     of God and man, of human life and Divine Providence, which
+     we now find to be untenable? _That_, we answer, is precisely
+     what the theory of development presupposes. If early views
+     of religion and morality had not been imperfect, where had
+     been the development? If symbolical visions and mythical
+     creations had found no place in the early Oriental
+     expression of Divine truth, where had been the development?
+     The sufficient answer to ninety-nine out of a hundred of the
+     ordinary objections to the Bible, as the record of a divine
+     education of our race, is asked in that one
+     word--development. And to what are we indebted for that
+     potent word, which, as with the wand of a magician, has at
+     the same moment so completely transformed our knowledge and
+     dispelled our difficulties? To modern science, resolutely
+     pursuing its search for truth in spite of popular obloquy
+     and--alas! that one should have to say it--in spite too
+     often of theological denunciation (p. 53).
+
+Apart from its general importance, I read this remarkable statement
+with the more pleasure, since, however imperfectly I may have
+endeavoured to illustrate the evolution of theology in a paper
+published in the _Nineteenth Century_ last year,[29] it seems to me
+that in principle, at any rate, I may hereafter claim high theological
+sanction for the views there set forth.
+
+If theologians are henceforward prepared to recognise the authority of
+secular science in the manner and to the extent indicated in the
+Manchester trilogy; if the distinguished prelates who offer these
+terms are really plenipotentiaries, then, so far as I may presume to
+speak on such a matter, there will be no difficulty about concluding a
+perpetual treaty of peace, and indeed of alliance, between the high
+contracting powers, whose history has hitherto been little more than a
+record of continual warfare. But if the great Chancellor's maxim, "Do
+ut des," is to form the basis of negotiation, I am afraid that
+secular science will be ruined; for it seems to me that theology,
+under the generous impulse of a sudden conversion, has given all that
+she hath; and indeed, on one point, has surrendered more than can
+reasonably be asked.
+
+I suppose I must be prepared to face the reproach which attaches to
+those who criticise a gift, if I venture to observe that I do not
+think that the Bishop of Manchester need have been so much alarmed, as
+he evidently has been, by the objections which have often been raised
+to prayer, on the ground that a belief in the efficacy of prayer is
+inconsistent with a belief in the constancy of the order of nature.
+
+The Bishop appears to admit that there is an antagonism between the
+"regular economy of nature" and the "regular economy of prayer" (p.
+39), and that "prayers for the interruption of God's natural order"
+are of "doubtful validity" (p. 42). It appears to me that the Bishop's
+difficulty simply adds another example to those which I have several
+times insisted upon in the pages of this Review and elsewhere, of the
+mischief which has been done, and is being done, by a mistaken
+apprehension of the real meaning of "natural order" and "law of
+nature."
+
+May I, therefore, be permitted to repeat, once more, that the
+statements denoted by these terms have no greater value or cogency
+than such as may attach to generalisations from experience of the
+past, and to expectations for the future based upon that experience?
+Nobody can presume to say what the order of nature must be; all that
+the widest experience (even if it extended over all past time and
+through all space) that events had happened in a certain way could
+justify, would be a proportionally strong expectation that events will
+go on happening, and the demand for a proportional strength of
+evidence in favour of any assertion that they had happened otherwise.
+
+It is this weighty consideration, the truth of which every one who is
+capable of logical thought must surely admit, which knocks the bottom
+out of all _a priori_ objections either to ordinary "miracles" or to
+the efficacy of prayer, in so far as the latter implies the miraculous
+intervention of a higher power. No one is entitled to say _a priori_
+that any given so-called miraculous event is impossible; and no one is
+entitled to say _a priori_ that prayer for some change in the ordinary
+course of nature cannot possibly avail.
+
+The supposition that there is any inconsistency between the acceptance
+of the constancy of natural order and a belief in the efficacy of
+prayer, is the more unaccountable as it is obviously contradicted by
+analogies furnished by everyday experience. The belief in the efficacy
+of prayer depends upon the assumption that there is somebody,
+somewhere, who is strong enough to deal with the earth and its
+contents as men deal with the things and events which they are strong
+enough to modify or control; and who is capable of being moved by
+appeals such as men make to one another. This belief does not even
+involve theism; for our earth is an insignificant particle of the
+solar system, while the solar system is hardly worth speaking of in
+relation to the All; and, for anything that can be proved to the
+contrary, there may be beings endowed with full powers over our
+system, yet, practically, as insignificant as ourselves in relation to
+the universe. If any one pleases, therefore, to give unrestrained
+liberty to his fancy, he may plead analogy in favour of the dream that
+there may be, somewhere, a finite being, or beings, who can play with
+the solar system as a child plays with a toy; and that such being may
+be willing to do anything which he is properly supplicated to do. For
+we are not justified in saying that it is impossible for beings having
+the nature of men, only vastly more powerful, to exist; and if they do
+exist, they may act as and when we ask them to do so, just as our
+brother men act. As a matter of fact, the great mass of the human race
+has believed, and still believes, in such beings, under the various
+names of fairies, gnomes, angels, and demons. Certainly I do not lack
+faith in the constancy of natural order. But I am not less convinced
+that if I were to ask the Bishop of Manchester to do me a kindness
+which lay within his power, he would do it. And I am unable to see
+that his action on my request involves any violation of the order of
+nature. On the contrary, as I have not the honour to know the Bishop
+personally, my action would be based upon my faith, in that "law of
+nature," or generalisation from experience, which tells me that, as a
+rule, men who occupy the Bishop's position are kindly and courteous.
+How is the case altered if my request is preferred to some imaginary
+superior being, or to the Most High being, who, by the supposition, is
+able to arrest disease, or make the sun stand still in the heavens,
+just as easily as I can stop my watch, or make it indicate any hour
+that pleases me?
+
+I repeat that it is not upon any _a priori_ considerations that
+objections, either to the supposed efficacy of prayer in modifying the
+course of events, or to the supposed occurrence of miracles, can be
+scientifically based. The real objection, and, to my mind, the fatal
+objection, to both these suppositions, is the inadequacy of the
+evidence to prove any given case of such occurrences which has been
+adduced. It is a canon of common sense, to say nothing of science,
+that the more improbable a supposed occurrence, the more cogent ought
+to be the evidence in its favour. I have looked somewhat carefully
+into the subject, and I am unable to find in the records of any
+miraculous event evidence which even approximates to the fulfilment of
+this requirement.
+
+But, in the case of prayer, the Bishop points out a most just and
+necessary distinction between its effect on the course of nature,
+outside ourselves, and its effect within the region of the
+supplicator's mind.
+
+It is a "law of nature," verifiable by everyday experience, that our
+already formed convictions, our strong desires, our intent occupation
+with particular ideas, modify our mental operations to a most
+marvellous extent, and produce enduring changes in the direction and
+in the intensity of our intellectual and moral activities. Men can
+intoxicate themselves with ideas as effectually as with alcohol or
+with bang, and produce, by dint of intense thinking, mental conditions
+hardly distinguishable from monomania. Demoniac possession is
+mythical; but the faculty of being possessed, more or less completely,
+by an idea is probably the fundamental condition of what is called
+genius, whether it show itself in the saint, the artist, or the man of
+science. One calls it faith, another calls it inspiration, a third
+calls it insight; but the "intending of the mind," to borrow Newton's
+well-known phrase, the concentration of all the rays of intellectual
+energy on some one point, until it glows and colours the whole cast of
+thought with its peculiar light, is common to all.
+
+I take it that the Bishop of Manchester has psychological science with
+him when he insists upon the subjective efficacy of prayer in faith,
+and on the seemingly miraculous effects which such "intending of the
+mind" upon religious and moral ideals may have upon character and
+happiness. Scientific faith, at present, takes it no further than the
+prayer which Ajax offered; but that petition is continually granted.
+
+Whatever points of detail may yet remain open for discussion, however,
+I repeat the opinion I have already expressed, that the Manchester
+sermons concede all that science, has an indisputable right, or any
+pressing need, to ask, and that not grudgingly but generously; and, if
+the three bishops of 1887 carry the Church with them, I think they
+will have as good title to the permanent gratitude of posterity as the
+famous seven who went to the Tower in defence of the Church two
+hundred years ago.
+
+Will their brethren follow their just and prudent guidance? I have no
+such acquaintance with the currents of ecclesiastical opinion as would
+justify me in even hazarding a guess on such a difficult topic. But
+some recent omens are hardly favourable. There seems to be an
+impression abroad--I do not desire to give any countenance to it--that
+I am fond of reading sermons. From time to time, unknown
+correspondents--some apparently animated by the charitable desire to
+promote my conversion, and others unmistakably anxious to spur me to
+the expression of wrathful antagonism--favour me with reports or
+copies of such productions.
+
+I found one of the latter category among the accumulated arrears to
+which I have already referred.
+
+It is a full, and apparently accurate, report of a discourse by a
+person of no less ecclesiastical rank than the three authors of the
+sermons I have hitherto been considering; but who he is, and where or
+when the sermon was preached, are secrets which wild horses shall not
+tear from me, lest I fall again under high censure for attacking a
+clergyman. Only if the editor of this Review thinks it his duty to
+have independent evidence that the sermon has a real existence, will
+I, in the strictest confidence, communicate it to him.
+
+The preacher, in this case, is of a very different mind from the three
+bishops--and this mind is different in quality, different in spirit,
+and different in contents. He discourses on the _a priori_ objections
+to miracles, apparently without being aware, in spite of all the
+discussions of the last seven or eight years, that he is doing battle
+with a shadow.
+
+I trust I do not misrepresent the Bishop of Manchester in saying that
+the essence of his remarkable discourse is the insistence upon the
+"supreme importance of the purely spiritual in our faith," and of the
+relative, if not absolute, insignificance of aught else. He obviously
+perceives the bearing of his arguments against the alterability of
+the course of outward nature by prayer, on the question of miracles in
+general; for he is careful to say that "the possibility of miracles,
+of a rare and unusual transcendence of the world order is not here in
+question" (p. 38). It may be permitted me to suppose, however, that,
+if miracles were in question, the speaker who warns us "that we must
+look for the heart of the absolute religion in that part of it which
+prescribes our moral and religious relations" (p. 46) would not be
+disposed to advise those who had found the heart of Christianity to
+take much thought about its miraculous integument.
+
+My anonymous sermon will have nothing to do with such notions as
+these, and its preacher is not too polite, to say nothing of
+charitable, towards those who entertain them.
+
+     Scientific men, therefore, are perfectly right in asserting
+     that Christianity rests on miracles. If miracles never
+     happened, Christianity, in any sense which is not a mockery,
+     which does not make the term of none effect, has no reality.
+     I dwell on this because there is now an effort making to get
+     up a non-miraculous, invertebrate Christianity, which may
+     escape the ban of science. And I would warn you very
+     distinctly against this new contrivance. Christianity is
+     essentially miraculous, and falls to the ground if miracles
+     be impossible.
+
+Well, warning for warning. I venture to warn this preacher and those
+who, with him, persist in identifying Christianity with the
+miraculous, that such forms of Christianity are not only doomed to
+fall to the ground; but that, within the last half century, they have
+been driving that way with continually accelerated velocity.
+
+The so-called religious world is given to a strange delusion. It
+fondly imagines that it possesses the monopoly of serious and constant
+reflection upon the terrible problems of existence; and that those who
+cannot accept its shibboleths are either mere Gallios, caring for none
+of these things, or libertines desiring to escape from the restraints
+of morality. It does not appear to have entered the imaginations of
+these people that, outside their pale and firmly resolved never to
+enter it, there are thousands of men, certainly not their inferiors in
+character, capacity, or knowledge of the questions at issue, who
+estimate those purely spiritual elements of the Christian faith of
+which the Bishop of Manchester speaks as highly as the Bishop does;
+but who will have nothing to do with the Christian Churches, because
+in their apprehension and for them, the profession of belief in the
+miraculous, on the evidence offered would be simply immoral.
+
+So far as my experience goes, men of science are neither better nor
+worse than the rest of the world. Occupation with the endlessly great
+parts of the universe does not necessarily involve greatness of
+character, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always
+produce humility. We have our full share of original sin; need,
+greed, and vainglory beset us as they do other mortals; and our
+progress is, for the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the
+resultant of opposite divergencies from the straight path. But, for
+all that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit of science
+unquestionably bestows. It keeps the estimate of the value of evidence
+up to the proper mark; and we are constantly receiving lessons, and
+sometimes very sharp ones, on the nature of proof. Men of science will
+always act up to their standard of veracity, when mankind in general
+leave off sinning; but that standard appears to me to be higher among
+them than in any other class of the community.
+
+I do not know any body of scientific men who could be got to listen
+without the strongest expressions of disgusted repudiation to the
+exposition of a pretended scientific discovery, which had no better
+evidence to show for itself than the story of the devils entering a
+herd of swine, or of the fig-tree that was blasted for bearing no figs
+when "it was not the season of figs." Whether such events are possible
+or impossible, no man can say; but scientific ethics can and does
+declare that the profession of belief in them, on the evidence of
+documents of unknown date and of unknown authorship, is immoral.
+Theological apologists who insist that morality will vanish if their
+dogmas are exploded, would do well to consider the fact that, in the
+matter of intellectual veracity, science is already a long way ahead
+of the Churches; and that, in this particular, it is exerting an
+educational influence on mankind of which the Churches have shown
+themselves utterly incapable.
+
+Undoubtedly that varying compound of some of the best and some of the
+worst elements of Paganism and Judaism, moulded in practice by the
+innate character of certain people of the Western world, which, since
+the second century, has assumed to itself the title of orthodox
+Christianity, "rests on miracles" and falls to the ground, not "if
+miracles be impossible," but if those to which it is committed prove
+themselves unable to fulfil the conditions of honest belief. That this
+Christianity is doomed to fall is, to my mind, beyond a doubt; but its
+fall will be neither sudden nor speedy. The Church, with all the aid
+lent it by the secular arm, took many centuries to extirpate the open
+practice of pagan idolatry within its own fold; and those who have
+travelled in southern Europe will be aware that it has not extirpated
+the essence of such idolatry even yet. _Mutato nomine_, it is probable
+that there is as much sheer fetichism among the Roman populace now as
+there was eighteen hundred years ago; and if Marcus Antonius could
+descend from his horse and ascend the steps of the Ara Coeli church
+about Twelfth Day, the only thing that need strike him would be the
+extremely contemptible character of the modern idols as works of art.
+
+Science will certainly neither ask for, nor receive, the aid of the
+secular arm. It will trust to the much better and more powerful help
+of that education in scientific truth and in the morals of assent,
+which is rendered as indispensable, as it is inevitable, by the
+permeation of practical life with the products and ideas of science.
+But no one who considers the present state of even the most developed
+countries can doubt that the scientific light that has come into the
+world will have to shine in the midst of darkness for a long time. The
+urban populations, driven into contact with science by trade and
+manufacture, will more and more receive it, while the _pagani_ will
+lag behind. Let us hope that no Julian may arise among them to head a
+forlorn hope against the inevitable. Whatever happens, science may
+bide her time in patience and in confidence.
+
+But to return to my "Anonymous." I am afraid that if he represents any
+great party in the Church, the spirit of justice and reasonableness
+which animates the three bishops has as slender a chance of being
+imitated, on a large scale, as their common sense and their courtesy.
+For, not contented with misrepresenting science on its speculative
+side, "Anonymous" attacks its morality.
+
+     For two whole years, investigations and conclusions which
+     would upset the theories of Darwin on the formation of coral
+     islands were actually suppressed, and that by the advice
+     even of those who accepted them, _for fear of upsetting the
+     faith and disturbing the judgment formed by the multitude
+     on the scientific character--the infallibility--of the great
+     master_!
+
+So far as I know anything about the matters which are here referred
+to, the part of this passage which I have italicised is absolutely
+untrue. I believe that I am intimately acquainted with all Mr.
+Darwin's immediate scientific friends: and I say that no one of them,
+nor any other man of science known to me, ever could, or would, have
+given such advice to any one--if for no other reason than that, with
+the example of the most candid and patient listener to objections that
+ever lived fresh in their memories, they could not so grossly have at
+once violated their highest duty and dishonoured their friend.
+
+The charge thus brought by "Anonymous" affects the honour and the
+probity of men of science; if it is true, we have forfeited all claim
+to the confidence of the general public. In my belief it is utterly
+false, and its real effect will be to discredit those who are
+responsible for it. As is the way with slanders, it has grown by
+repetition. "Anonymous" is responsible for the peculiarly offensive
+form which it has taken in his hands; but he is not responsible for
+originating it. He has evidently been inspired by an article entitled
+"A Great Lesson," published in the September number of this Review.
+Truly it is "a great lesson," but not quite in the sense intended by
+the giver thereof.
+
+In the course of his doubtless well-meant admonitions, the Duke of
+Argyll commits himself to a greater number of statements which are
+demonstrably incorrect and which any one who ventured to write upon
+the subject ought to have known to be incorrect, than I have ever seen
+gathered together in so small a space.
+
+I submit a gathering from the rich store for the appreciation of the
+public.
+
+First:--
+
+     Mr. Murray's new explanation of the structure of coral-reefs
+     and islands was communicated to the Royal Society of
+     Edinburgh in 1880, and supported with such a weight of facts
+     and such a close texture of reasoning, that no serious reply
+     has ever been attempted (p. 305).
+
+"No serious reply has ever been attempted"! I suppose that the Duke of
+Argyll may have heard of Professor Dana, whose years of labour devoted
+to corals and coral-reefs when he was naturalist of the American
+expedition under Commodore Wilkes, more than forty years ago, have
+ever since caused him to be recognised as an authority of the first
+rank on such subjects. Now does his Grace know, or does he not know,
+that, in the year 1885, Professor Dana published an elaborate paper
+"On the Origin of Coral-Reefs and Islands," in which, after referring
+to a Presidential Address by the Director of the Geological Survey of
+Great Britain and Ireland delivered in 1883, in which special
+attention is directed to Mr. Murray's views Professor Dana says:--
+
+     The existing state of doubt on the question has led the
+     writer to reconsider the earlier and later facts, and in the
+     following pages he gives his results.
+
+Professor Dana then devotes many pages of his very "serious reply" to
+a most admirable and weighty criticism of the objections which have at
+various times been raised to Mr. Darwin's doctrine, by Professor
+Semper, by Dr. Rein, and finally by Mr. Murray, and he states his
+final judgment as follows:--
+
+     With the theory of abrasion and solution incompetent, all
+     the hypotheses of objectors to Darwin's theory are alike
+     weak; for all have made these processes their chief
+     reliance, whether appealing to a calcareous, or a volcanic,
+     or a mountain-peak basement for the structure. The
+     subsidence which the Darwinian theory requires has not been
+     opposed by the mention of any fact at variance with it, nor
+     by setting aside Darwin's arguments in its favour; and it
+     has found new support in the facts from the "Challenger's"
+     soundings off Tahiti, that had been put in array against it,
+     and strong corroboration in the facts from the West Indies.
+
+     Darwin's theory, therefore, remains as the theory that
+     accounts for the origin of reefs and islands.[30]
+
+Be it understood that I express no opinion on the controverted points.
+I doubt if there are ten living men who, having a practical knowledge
+of what a coral-reef is, have endeavoured to master the very difficult
+biological and geological problems involved in their study. I happen
+to have spent the best part of three years among coral-reefs and to
+have made that attempt; and, when Mr. Murray's work appeared, I said
+to myself that until I had two or three months to give to the renewed
+study of the subject in all its bearings, I must be content to remain
+in a condition of suspended judgment. In the meanwhile, the man who
+would be voted by common acclamation as the most competent person now
+living to act as umpire, has delivered the verdict I have quoted; and,
+to go no further, has fully justified the hesitation I and others may
+have felt about expressing an opinion. Under these circumstances, it
+seems to me to require a good deal of courage to say "no serious reply
+has ever been attempted"; and to chide the men of science, in lofty
+tones, for their "reluctance to admit an error" which is not admitted;
+and for their "slow and sulky acquiescence" in a conclusion which they
+have the gravest warranty for suspecting.
+
+Second:--
+
+     Darwin himself had lived to hear of the new solution and,
+     with that splendid candour which was eminent in him his
+     mind, though now grown old in his own early convictions, was
+     at least ready to entertain it, and to confess that serious
+     doubts had been awakened as to the truth of his famous
+     theory (p. 305).
+
+I wish that Darwin's splendid candour could be conveyed by some
+description of spiritual "microbe" to those who write about him. I am
+not aware that Mr. Darwin ever entertained "serious doubts as to the
+truth of his famous theory"; and there is tolerably good evidence to
+the contrary. The second edition of his work, published in 1876,
+proves that he entertained no such doubts then; a letter to Professor
+Semper, whose objections, in some respects, forestalled those of Mr.
+Murray, dated October 2, 1879, expresses his continued adherence to
+the opinion "that the atolls and barrier reefs in the middle of the
+Pacific and Indian Oceans indicate subsidence"; and the letter of my
+friend Professor Judd, printed at the end of this article (which I had
+perhaps better say Professor Judd had not seen) will prove that this
+opinion remained unaltered to the end of his life.
+
+Third:--
+
+     ... Darwin's theory is a dream. It is not only unsound, but
+     it is in many respects the reverse of truth. With all his
+     conscientiousness, with all his caution, with all his powers
+     of observation, Darwin in this matter fell into errors as
+     profound as the abysses of the Pacific (p. 301).
+
+Really? It seems to me that, under the circumstances, it is pretty
+clear that these lines exhibit a lack of the qualities justly ascribed
+to Mr. Darwin, which plunges their author into a much deeper abyss,
+and one from which there is no hope of emergence.
+
+Fourth:--
+
+     All the acclamations with which it was received were as the
+     shouts of an ignorant mob (p. 301).
+
+But surely it should be added that the Coryphaeus of this ignorant
+mob, the fugleman of the shouts, was one of the most accomplished
+naturalists and geologists now living--the American Dana--who, after
+years of independent study extending over numerous reefs in the
+Pacific, gave his hearty assent to Darwin's views, and after all that
+had been said, deliberately reaffirmed that assent in the year 1885.
+
+Fifth:--
+
+     The overthrow of Darwin's speculation is only beginning to
+     be known. It has been whispered for some time. The cherished
+     dogma has been dropping very slowly out of sight (p. 301).
+
+Darwin's speculation may be right or wrong, but I submit that that
+which has not happened cannot even begin to be known, except by those
+who have miraculous gifts to which we poor scientific people do not
+aspire. The overthrow of Darwin's views may have been whispered by
+those who hoped for it; and they were perhaps wise in not raising
+their voices above a whisper. Incorrect statements, if made too
+loudly, are apt to bring about unpleasant consequences.
+
+Sixth:--
+
+Mr. Murray's views, published in 1880, are said to have met with "slow
+and sulky acquiescence" (p. 305). I have proved that they cannot be
+said to have met with general acquiescence of any sort, whether quick
+and cheerful, or slow and sulky; and if this assertion is meant to
+convey the impression that Mr. Murray's views have been ignored, that
+there has been a conspiracy of silence against them, it is utterly
+contrary to notorious fact.
+
+Professor Geikie's well-known "Textbook of Geology" was published in
+1882, and at pages 457-459 of that work there is a careful exposition
+of Mr. Murray's views. Moreover Professor Geikie has specially
+advocated them on other occasions,[31] notably in a long article on
+"The Origin of Coral-Reefs," published in two numbers of "Nature" for
+1883, and in a Presidential Address delivered in the same year. If, in
+so short a time after the publication of his views, Mr. Murray could
+boast of a convert, so distinguished and influential as the Director
+of the Geological Survey, it seems to me that this wonderful
+_conspiration de silence_ (which has about as much real existence as
+the Duke of Argyll's other bogie, "The Reign of Terror ") must have
+_ipso facto_ collapsed. I wish that, when I was a young man, my
+endeavours to upset some prevalent errors had met with as speedy and
+effectual backing.
+
+Seventh:--
+
+     ... Mr. John Murray was strongly advised against the
+     publication of his views in derogation of Darwin's
+     long-accepted theory of the coral islands, and was actually
+     induced to delay it for two years. Yet the late Sir Wyville
+     Thomson, who was at the head of the naturalists of the
+     "Challenger" expedition, was himself convinced by Mr.
+     Murray's reasoning (p. 307).
+
+Clearly, then, it could not be Mr. Murray's official chief who gave
+him this advice. Who was it? And what was the exact nature of the
+advice given? Until we have some precise information on this head, I
+shall take leave to doubt whether this statement is more accurate than
+those which I have previously cited.
+
+Whether such advice was wise or foolish, just or immoral, depends
+entirely on the motive of the person who gave it. If he meant to
+suggest to Mr. Murray that it might be wise for a young and
+comparatively unknown man to walk warily, when he proposed to attack a
+generalisation based on many years' labour of one undoubtedly
+competent person, and fortified by the independent results of the many
+years' labour of another undoubtedly competent person; and even, if
+necessary, to take two whole years in fortifying his position, I think
+that such advice would have been sagacious and kind. I suppose that
+there are few working men of science who have not kept their ideas to
+themselves, while gathering and sifting evidence, for a much longer
+period than two years.
+
+If, on the other hand, Mr. Murray was advised to delay the publication
+of his criticisms, simply to save Mr. Darwin's credit and to preserve
+some reputation for infallibility, which no one ever heard of, then I
+have no hesitation in declaring that his adviser was profoundly
+dishonest, as well as extremely foolish; and that, if he is a man of
+science, he has disgraced his calling.
+
+But, after all, this supposed scientific Achitophel has not yet made
+good the primary fact of his existence. Until the needful proof is
+forthcoming, I think I am justified in suspending my judgment as to
+whether he is much more than an anti-scientific myth. I leave it to
+the Duke of Argyll to judge of the extent of the obligation under
+which, for his own sake, he may lie to produce the evidence on which
+his aspersions of the honour of scientific men are based. I cannot
+pretend that we are seriously disturbed by charges which every one who
+is acquainted with the truth of the matter knows to be ridiculous; but
+mud has a habit of staining if it lies too long, and it is as well to
+have it brushed off as soon as may be.
+
+So much for the "Great Lesson." It is followed by a "Little Lesson,"
+apparently directed against my infallibility--a doctrine about which I
+should be inclined to paraphrase Wilkes's remark to George the Third,
+when he declared that he, at any rate, was not a Wilkite. But I really
+should be glad to think that there are people who need the warning,
+because then it will be obvious that this raking up of an old story
+cannot have been suggested by a mere fanatical desire to damage men
+of science. I can but rejoice, then, that these misguided enthusiasts,
+whose faith, in me has so far exceeded the bounds of reason, should be
+set right. But that "want of finish" in the matter of accuracy which
+so terribly mars the effect of the "Great Lesson," is no less
+conspicuous in the case of the "Little Lesson," and, instead of
+setting my too fervent disciples right, it will set them wrong.
+
+The Duke of Argyll, in telling the story of _Bathybius_, says that my
+mind was "caught by this new and grand generalisation of the physical
+basis of life." I never have been guilty of a reclamation about
+anything to my credit, and I do not mean to be; but if there is any
+blame going, I do not choose to be relegated to a subordinate place
+when I have a claim to the first. The responsibility for the first
+description and the naming of _Bathybius_ is mine and mine only. The
+paper on "Some Organisms living at great Depths in the Atlantic
+Ocean," in which I drew attention to this substance, is to be found by
+the curious in the eighth volume of the "Quarterly Journal of
+Microscopical Science," and was published in the year 1868. Whatever
+errors are contained in that paper are my own peculiar property; but
+neither at the meeting of the British Association in 1868, nor
+anywhere else, have I gone beyond what is there stated; except in so
+far that, at a long-subsequent meeting of the Association, being
+importuned about the subject, I ventured to express, somewhat
+emphatically, the wish that the thing was at the bottom of the sea.
+
+What is meant by my being caught by a generalisation about the
+physical basis of life I do not know; still less can I understand the
+assertion that _Bathybius_ was accepted because of its supposed
+harmony with Darwin's speculations. That which interested me in the
+matter was the apparent analogy of _Bathybius_ with other well-known
+forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia of the Myxomycetes and the
+Rhizopods. Speculative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the
+matter; and if _Bathybius_ were brought up alive from the bottom of
+the Atlantic to-morrow, the fact would not have the slightest bearing,
+that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations, or upon any of the
+disputed problems of biology. It would merely be one elementary
+organism the more added to the thousands already known.
+
+Up to this moment I was not aware of the universal favour with which
+_Bathybius_ was received.[32] Those simulators of an "ignorant mob"
+who, according to the Duke of Argyll, welcomed Darwin's theory of
+coral-reefs, made no demonstration in my favour, unless his Grace
+includes Sir Wyville Thomson, Dr. Carpenter, Dr. Bessels, and
+Professor Haeckel under that head. On the contrary, a sagacious friend
+of mine, than whom there was no more competent judge, the late Mr.
+George Busk, was not to be converted; while, long before the
+"Challenger" work, Ehrenberg wrote to me very sceptically; and I fully
+expected that that eminent man would favour me with pretty sharp
+criticism. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards, and nothing from
+him, that I know of, appeared. When Sir Wyville Thomson wrote to me a
+brief account of the results obtained on board the "Challenger" I sent
+this statement to "Nature," in which journal it appeared the following
+week, without any further note or comment than was needful to explain
+the circumstances. In thus allowing judgment to go by default, I am
+afraid I showed a reckless and ungracious disregard for the feelings
+of the believers in my infallibility. No doubt I ought to have hedged
+and fenced and attenuated the effect of Sir Wyville Thomson's brief
+note in every possible way. Or perhaps I ought to have suppressed the
+note altogether, on the ground that it was a mere _ex parte_
+statement. My excuse is that, notwithstanding a large and abiding
+faith in human folly, I did not know then, any more than I know now,
+that there was anybody foolish enough to be unaware that the only
+people scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do
+nothing; or that anybody, for whose opinion I cared, would not rather
+see me commit ten blunders than try to hide one.
+
+Pending the production of further evidence, I hold that the existence
+of people who believe in the infallibility of men of science is as
+purely mythical as that of the evil counsellor who advised the
+withholding of the truth lest it should conflict with that belief.
+
+I venture to think, then, that the Duke of Argyll might have spared
+his "Little Lesson" as well as his "Great Lesson" with advantage. The
+paternal authority who whips the child for sins he has not committed
+does not strengthen his moral influence--rather excites contempt and
+repugnance. And if, as would seem from this and former monitory
+allocutions which have been addressed to us, the Duke aspires to the
+position of censor, or spiritual director, in relation to the men who
+are doing the work of physical science, he really must get up his
+facts better. There will be an end to all chance of our kissing the
+rod if his Grace goes wrong a third time. He must not say again that
+"no serious reply has been attempted" to a view which was discussed
+and repudiated, two years before, by one of the highest extant
+authorities on the subject; he must not say that Darwin accepted that
+which it can be proved he did not accept; he must not say that a
+doctrine has dropped into the abyss when it is quite obviously alive
+and kicking at the surface; he must not assimilate a man like
+Professor Dana to the components of an "ignorant mob"; he must not say
+that things are beginning to be known which are not known at all; he
+must not say that "slow and sulky acquiescence" has been given to that
+which cannot yet boast of general acquiescence of any kind; he must
+not suggest that a view which has been publicly advocated by the
+Director of the Geological Survey and no less publicly discussed by
+many other authoritative writers has been intentionally and
+systematically ignored; he must not ascribe ill motives for a course
+of action which is the only proper one; and finally, if any one but
+myself were interested, I should say that he had better not waste his
+time in raking up the errors of those whose lives have been occupied,
+not in talking about science, but in toiling, sometimes with success
+and sometimes with failure, to get some real work done.
+
+The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their
+readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge
+these inevitable lapses. The Duke of Argyll has now a splendid
+opportunity for proving to the world in which of these categories it
+is hereafter to rank him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+DEAR PROFESSOR HUXLEY,--A short time before Mr. Darwin's death, I had
+a conversation with, him concerning the observations which had been
+made by Mr. Murray upon coral-reefs, and the speculations which had
+been founded upon those observations. I found that Mr. Darwin had very
+carefully considered the whole subject, and that while, on the one
+hand, he did not regard the actual facts recorded by Mr. Murray as
+absolutely inconsistent with his own theory of subsidence, on the
+other hand, he did not believe that they necessitated or supported the
+hypothesis advanced by Mr. Murray. Mr. Darwin's attitude, as I
+understood it, towards Mr. Murray's objections to the theory of
+subsidence was exactly similar to that maintained by him with respect
+to Professor Semper's criticism, which was of a very similar
+character; and his position with regard to the whole question was
+almost identical with that subsequently so clearly defined by
+Professor Dana in his well-known articles published in the "American
+Journal of Science" for 1885.
+
+It is difficult to imagine how any one, acquainted with the scientific
+literature of the last seven years, could possibly suggest that Mr.
+Murray's memoir published in 1880 had failed to secure a due amount of
+attention. Mr. Murray, by his position in the "Challenger" office,
+occupied an exceptionally favourable position for making his views
+widely known; and he had, moreover, the singular good fortune to
+secure from the first the advocacy of so able and brilliant a writer
+as Professor Archibald Geikie, who in a special discourse and in
+several treatises on geology and physical geology very strongly
+supported the new theory. It would be an endless task to attempt to
+give references to the various scientific journals which have
+discussed the subject, but I may add that every treatise on geology
+which has been published, since Mr. Murray's views were made known,
+has dealt with his observations at considerable length. This is true
+of Professor A.H. Green's "Physical Geology," published in 1882; of
+Professor Prestwich's "Geology, Chemical and Physical"; and of
+Professor James Geikie's "Outlines of Geology," published in 1886.
+Similar prominence is given to the subject in De Lapparent's "Traite
+de Geologie," published in 1885, and in Credner's "Elemente der
+Geologie," which has appeared during the present year. If this be a
+"conspiracy of silence," where, alas! can the geological speculator
+seek for fame?--Yours very truly, JOHN W. JUDD.
+
+_October_ 10, 1887.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [28] _The Advance of Science_. Three sermons preached in
+          Manchester Cathedral on Sunday, September 4, 1887,
+          during the meeting of the British Association for the
+          Advancement of Science, by the Bishop of Carlisle, the
+          Bishop of Bedford, and the Bishop of Manchester.
+
+     [29] Reprinted in Vol. IV. of this collection.
+
+     [30] _American Journal of Science_, 1885, p. 190.
+
+     [31] Professor Geikie, however, though a strong, is a fair
+          and candid advocate. He says of Darwin's theory, "That
+          it may be possibly true, in some instances, may be
+          readily granted." For Professor Geikie, then, it is not
+          yet over-thrown--still less a dream.
+
+     [32] I find, moreover, that I specially warned my readers
+          against hasty judgment. After stating the facts of
+          observation, I add, "I have, hitherto, said nothing
+          about their meaning, as, in an inquiry so difficult and
+          fraught with interest as this, it seems to me to be in
+          the highest degree important to keep the questions of
+          fact and the questions of interpretation well apart"
+          (p. 210).
+
+
+
+
+V: THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS
+
+[1889]
+
+
+Charles, or, more properly, Karl, King of the Franks, consecrated
+Roman Emperor in St. Peter's on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, and known to
+posterity as the Great (chiefly by his agglutinative Gallicised
+denomination, of Charlemagne), was a man great in all ways, physically
+and mentally. Within a couple of centuries after his death Charlemagne
+became the centre of innumerable legends; and the myth-making process
+does not seem to have been sensibly interfered with by the existence
+of sober and truthful histories of the Emperor and of the times which
+immediately preceded and followed his reign by a contemporary writer
+who occupied a high and confidential position in his court, and in
+that of his successor. This was one Eginhard, or Einhard, who appears
+to have been born about A.D. 770, and spent his youth at the court,
+being educated along with Charles's sons. There is excellent
+contemporary testimony not only to Eginhard's existence, but to his
+abilities, and to the place which he occupied in the circle of the
+intimate friends of the great ruler whose life he subsequently wrote.
+In fact, there is as good evidence of Eginhard's existence, of his
+official position, and of his being the author of the chief works
+attributed to him, as can reasonably be expected in the case of a man
+who lived more than a thousand years ago, and was neither a great king
+nor a great warrior. The works are--1. "The Life of the Emperor Karl."
+2. "The Annals of the Franks." 3. "Letters." 4. "The History of the
+Translation of the Blessed Martyrs of Christ, SS. Marcellinus and
+Petrus."
+
+It is to the last, as one of the most singular and interesting records
+of the period during which the Roman world passed into that of the
+Middle Ages, that I wish to direct attention.[33] It was written in
+the ninth century, somewhere, apparently, about the year 830, when
+Eginhard, ailing in health and weary of political life, had withdrawn
+to the monastery of Seligenstadt, of which he was the founder. A
+manuscript copy of the work, made in the tenth century, and once the
+property of the monastery of St. Bavon on the Scheldt, of which
+Eginhard was Abbot, is still extant, and there is no reason to believe
+that, in this copy, the original has been in any way interpolated or
+otherwise tampered with. The main features of the strange story
+contained in the "Historia Translationis" are set forth in the
+following pages, in which, in regard to all matters of importance, I
+shall adhere as closely as possible to Eginhard's own words.
+
+     While I was still at Court, busied with secular affairs, I
+     often thought of the leisure which I hoped one day to enjoy
+     in a solitary place, far away from the crowd, with which the
+     liberality of Prince Louis, whom I then served, had provided
+     me. This place is situated in that part of Germany which
+     lies between the Neckar and the Maine,[34] and is nowadays
+     called the Odenwald by those who live in and about it. And
+     here having built, according to my capacity and resources,
+     not only houses and permanent dwellings, but also a basilica
+     fitted for the performance of divine service and of no mean
+     style of construction, I began to think to what saint or
+     martyr I could best dedicate it. A good deal of time had
+     passed while my thoughts fluctuated about this matter, when
+     it happened that a certain deacon of the Roman Church, named
+     Deusdona, arrived at the Court for the purpose of seeking
+     the favour of the King in some affairs in which he was
+     interested. He remained some time; and then, having
+     transacted his business, he was about to return to Rome,
+     when one day, moved by courtesy to a stranger, we invited
+     him to a modest refection; and while talking of many things
+     at table, mention was made of the translation of the body of
+     the blessed Sebastian,[35] and of the neglected tombs of
+     the martyrs, of which there is such a prodigious number at
+     Rome; and the conversation having turned towards the
+     dedication of our new basilica, I began to inquire how it
+     might be possible for me to obtain some of the true relics
+     of the saints which rest at Rome. He at first hesitated, and
+     declared that he did not know how that could be done. But
+     observing that I was both anxious and curious about the
+     subject, he promised to give me an answer some other day.
+
+     When I returned to the question some time afterwards, he
+     immediately drew from his bosom a paper, which he begged me
+     to read when I was alone, and to tell him what I was
+     disposed to think of that which was therein stated. I took
+     the paper and, as he desired, read it alone and in secret.
+     (Cap. i. 2, 3.)
+
+I shall have occasion to return to Deacon Deusdona's conditions, and
+to what happened after Eginhard's acceptance of them. Suffice it, for
+the present, to say that Eginhard's notary, Ratleicus (Ratleig), was
+despatched to Rome and succeeded in securing two bodies, supposed to
+be those of the holy martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus; and when he had
+got as far on his homeward journey as the Burgundian town of
+Solothurn, or Soleure,[36] notary Ratleig despatched to his master, at
+St. Bavon, a letter announcing the success of his mission.
+
+     As soon as by reading it I was assured of the arrival of the
+     saints, I despatched a confidential messenger to Maestricht
+     to gather together priests, other clerics, and also laymen,
+     to go out to meet the coming saints as speedily as possible.
+     And he and his companions, having lost no time, after a few
+     days met those who had charge of the saints at Solothurn.
+     Joined with them, and with a vast crowd of people who
+     gathered from all parts, singing hymns, and amidst great and
+     universal rejoicings, they travelled quickly to the city of
+     Argentoratum, which is now called Strasburg. Thence
+     embarking on the Rhine, they came to the place called
+     Portus,[37] and landing on the east bank of the river, at
+     the fifth station thence they arrived at Michilinstadt,[38]
+     accompanied by an immense multitude, praising God. This
+     place is in that forest of Germany which in modern times is
+     called the Odenwald, and about six leagues from the Maine.
+     And here, having found a basilica recently built by me, but
+     not yet consecrated, they carried the sacred remains into it
+     and deposited them therein, as if it were to be their final
+     resting-place. As soon as all this was reported to me I
+     travelled thither as quickly as I could. (Cap. ii. 14.)
+
+Three days after Eginhard's arrival began the series of wonderful
+events which he narrates, and for which we have his personal
+guarantee. The first thing that he notices is the dream of a servant
+of Ratleig, the notary, who, being set to watch the holy relics in the
+church after vespers, went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a
+vision of two pigeons, one white and one gray and white, which came
+and sat upon the bier over the relics; while, at the same time, a
+voice ordered the man to tell his master that the holy martyrs had
+chosen another resting-place and desired to be transported thither
+without delay.
+
+Unfortunately, the saints seem to have forgotten to mention where
+they wished to go; and, with the most anxious desire to gratify their
+smallest wishes, Eginhard was naturally greatly perplexed what to do.
+While in this state of mind, he was one day contemplating his "great
+and wonderful treasure, more precious than all the gold in the world,"
+when it struck him that the chest in which the relics were contained
+was quite unworthy of its contents; and, after vespers, he gave orders
+to one of the sacristans to take the measure of the chest in order
+that a more fitting shrine might be constructed. The man, having
+lighted a wax candle and raised the pall which covered the relics, in
+order to carry out his master's orders, was astonished and terrified
+to observe that the chest was covered with a blood-like exudation
+(_loculum mirum in modum humore sanguineo undique distillantem_), and
+at once sent a message to Eginhard.
+
+     Then I and those priests who accompanied me beheld this
+     stupendous miracle, worthy of all admiration. For just as
+     when it is going to rain, pillars and slabs and marble
+     images exude moisture, and, as it were, sweat, so the chest
+     which contained the most sacred relics was found moist with
+     the blood exuding on all sides. (Cap. ii. 16.)
+
+Three days' fast was ordained in order that the meaning of the portent
+might be ascertained. All that happened, however, was that, at the end
+of that time, the "blood," which had been exuding in drops all the
+while, dried up. Eginhard is careful to say that the liquid "had a
+saline taste, something like that of tears, and was thin as water
+though of the colour of true blood," and he clearly thinks this
+satisfactory evidence that it was blood.
+
+The same night, another servant had a vision, in which still more
+imperative orders for the removal of the relics were given; and, from
+that time forth, "not a single night passed without one, two, or even
+three of our companions receiving revelations in dreams that the
+bodies of the saints were to be transferred from that place to
+another." At last a priest, Hildfrid, saw, in a dream, a venerable
+white-haired man in a priest's vestments, who bitterly reproached
+Eginhard for not obeying the repeated orders of the saints; and, upon
+this, the journey was commenced. Why Eginhard delayed obedience to
+these repeated visions so long does not appear. He does not say so, in
+so many words, but the general tenor of the narrative leads one to
+suppose that Mulinheim (afterwards Seligenstadt) is the "solitary
+place" in which he had built the church which awaited dedication. In
+that case, all the people about him would know that he desired that
+the saints should go there. If a glimmering of secular sense led him
+to be a little suspicious about the real cause of the unanimity of the
+visionary beings who manifested themselves to his _entourage_, in
+favour of moving on, he does not say so.
+
+At the end of the first day's journey, the precious relics were
+deposited in the church of St. Martin, in the village of Ostheim.
+Hither, a paralytic nun (_sanctimonialis quaedam paralytica_) of the
+name of Ruodlang was brought, in a car, by her friends and relatives
+from a monastery a league off. She spent the night watching and
+praying by the bier of the saints; "and health returning to all her
+members, on the morrow she went back to her place whence she came, on
+her feet, nobody supporting her, or in any way giving her assistance."
+(Cap. ii. 19.)
+
+On the second day, the relics were carried to Upper Mulinheim; and,
+finally, in accordance with the orders of the martyrs, deposited in
+the church of that place, which was therefore renamed Seligenstadt.
+Here, Daniel, a beggar boy of fifteen, and so bent that "he could not
+look at the sky without lying on his back," collapsed and fell down
+during the celebration of the Mass. "Thus he lay a long time, as if
+asleep, and all his limbs straightening and his flesh strengthening
+(_recepta firmitate nervorum_), he arose before our eyes, quite well."
+(Cap. ii. 20.)
+
+Some time afterwards an old man entered the church on his hands and
+knees, being unable to use his limbs properly:--
+
+     He, in presence of all of us, by the power of God and the
+     merits of the blessed martyrs, in the same hour in which he
+     entered was so perfectly cured that he walked without so
+     much as a stick. And he said that, though he had been deaf
+     for five years, his deafness had ceased along with the
+     palsy. (Cap. iii. 33.)
+
+Eginhard was now obliged to return to the Court at Aix-la-Chapelle,
+where his duties kept him through the winter; and he is careful to
+point out that the later miracles which he proceeds to speak of are
+known to him only at second hand. But, as he naturally observes,
+having seen such wonderful events with his own eyes, why should he
+doubt similar narrations when they are received from trustworthy
+sources?
+
+Wonderful stories these are indeed, but as they are, for the most
+part, of the same general character as those already recounted, they
+may be passed over. There is, however, an account of a possessed
+maiden which is worth attention. This is set forth in a memoir, the
+principal contents of which are the speeches of a demon who declared
+himself to possess the singular appellation of "Wiggo," and revealed
+himself in the presence of many witnesses, before the altar, close to
+the relics of the blessed martyrs. It is noteworthy that the
+revelations appear to have been made in the shape of replies to the
+questions of the exorcising priest; and there is no means of judging
+how far the answers are, really, only the questions to which the
+patient replied yes or no.
+
+The possessed girl, about sixteen years of age, was brought by her
+parents to the basilica of the martyrs.
+
+     When she approached the tomb containing the sacred bodies,
+     the priest, according to custom, read the formula of
+     exorcism over her head. When he began to ask how and when
+     the demon had entered her, she answered, not in the tongue
+     of the barbarians, which alone the girl knew, but in the
+     Roman tongue. And when the priest was astonished and asked
+     how she came to know Latin, when her parents, who stood by,
+     were wholly ignorant of it, "Thou hast never seen my
+     parents," was the reply. To this the priest, "Whence art
+     thou, then, if these are not thy parents?" And the demon, by
+     the mouth of the girl, "I am a follower and disciple of
+     Satan, and for a long time I was gatekeeper (janitor) in
+     hell; but for some years, along with eleven companions, I
+     have ravaged the kingdom of the Franks." (Cap. v. 49.)
+
+He then goes on to tell how they blasted the crops and scattered
+pestilence among beasts and men, because of the prevalent wickedness
+of the people.[39]
+
+The enumeration of all these iniquities, in oratorical style, takes up
+a whole octavo page; and at the end it is stated, "All these things
+the demon spoke in Latin by the mouth of the girl."
+
+     And when the priest imperatively ordered him to come out, "I
+     shall go," said he, "not in obedience to you, but on account
+     of the power of the saints, who do not allow me to remain
+     any longer." And having said this, he threw the girl down on
+     the floor and there compelled her to lie prostrate for a
+     time, as though she slumbered. After a little while,
+     however, he going away, the girl, by the power of Christ and
+     the merits of the blessed martyrs, as it were awaking from
+     sleep, rose up quite well, to the astonishment of all
+     present; nor after the demon had gone out was she able to
+     speak Latin: so that it was plain enough that it was not she
+     who had spoken in that tongue, but the demon by her mouth.
+     (Cap. v. 51.)
+
+If the "Historia Translationis" contained nothing more than has been
+laid before the reader, up to this time, disbelief in the miracles of
+which it gives so precise and full a record might well be regarded as
+hyper-scepticism. It might fairly be said, Here you have a man, whose
+high character, acute intelligence, and large instruction are
+certified by eminent contemporaries; a man who stood high in the
+confidence of one of the greatest rulers of any age, and whose other
+works prove him to be an accurate and judicious narrator of ordinary
+events. This man tells you, in language which bears the stamp of
+sincerity, of things which happened within his own knowledge, or
+within that of persons in whose veracity he has entire confidence,
+while he appeals to his sovereign and the court as witnesses of
+others; what possible ground can there be for disbelieving him?
+
+Well, it is hard upon Eginhard to say so, but it is exactly the
+honesty and sincerity of the man which are his undoing as a witness to
+the miraculous. He himself makes it quite obvious that when his
+profound piety comes on the stage, his good sense and even his
+perception of right and wrong, make their exit. Let us go back to the
+point at which we left him, secretly perusing the letter of Deacon
+Deusdona. As he tells us, its contents were
+
+     that he [the deacon] had many relics of saints at home, and
+     that he would give them to me if I would furnish him with
+     the means of returning to Rome; he had observed that I had
+     two mules, and if I would let him have one of them and would
+     despatch with him a confidential servant to take charge of
+     the relics, he would at once send them to me. This plausibly
+     expressed proposition pleased me, and I made up my mind to
+     test the value of the somewhat ambiguous promise at
+     once;[40] so giving him the mule and money for his journey I
+     ordered my notary Ratleig (who already desired to go to Rome
+     to offer his devotions there) to go with him. Therefore,
+     having left Aix-la-Chapelle (where the Emperor and his Court
+     resided at the time) they came to Soissons. Here they spoke
+     with Hildoin, abbot of the monastery of St. Medardus,
+     because the said deacon had assured him that he had the
+     means of placing in his possession the body of the blessed
+     Tiburtius the Martyr. Attracted by which promises he
+     (Hildoin) sent with them a certain priest, Hunus by name, a
+     sharp man (_hominem callidum_), whom he ordered to receive
+     and bring back the body of the martyr in question. And so,
+     resuming their journey, they proceeded to Rome as fast as
+     they could. (Cap. i. 3.)
+
+Unfortunately, a servant of the notary, one Reginbald, fell ill of a
+tertian fever, and impeded the progress of the party. However, this
+piece of adversity had its sweet uses; for three days before they
+reached Rome, Reginbald had a vision. Somebody habited as a deacon
+appeared to him and asked why his master was in such a hurry to get
+to Rome; and when Reginbald explained their business, this visionary
+deacon, who seems to have taken the measure of his brother in the
+flesh with some accuracy, told him not by any means to expect that
+Deusdona would fulfil his promises. Moreover, taking the servant by
+the hand, he led him to the top of a high mountain and, showing him
+Rome (where the man had never been), pointed out a church, adding
+"Tell Ratleig the thing he wants is hidden there; let him get it as
+quickly as he can and go back to his master." By way of a sign that
+the order was authoritative, the servant was promised that, from that
+time forth, his fever should disappear. And as the fever did vanish to
+return no more, the faith of Eginhard's people in Deacon Deusdona
+naturally vanished with it (_et fidem diaconi promissis non
+haberent_). Nevertheless, they put up at the deacon's house near St.
+Peter ad Vincula. But time went on and no relics made their
+appearance, while the notary and the priest were put off with all
+sorts of excuses--the brother to whom the relics had been confided was
+gone to Beneventum and not expected back for some time, and so
+on--until Ratleig and Hunus began to despair, and were minded to
+return, _infecto negotio_.
+
+     But my notary, calling to mind his servant's dream, proposed
+     to his companion that they should go to the cemetery which
+     their host had talked about without him. So, having found
+     and hired a guide, they went in the first place to the
+     basilica of the blessed Tiburtius in the Via Labicana, about
+     three thousand paces fron the town, and cautiously and
+     carefully inspected the tomb of that martyr, in order to
+     discover whether it could be opened without any one being
+     the wiser. Then they descended into the adjoining crypt, in
+     which the bodies of the blessed martyrs of Christ,
+     Marcellinus and Petrus, were buried; and, having made out
+     the nature of their tomb, they went away thinking their host
+     would not know what they had been about. But things fell out
+     differently from what they had imagined. (Cap. i. 7.)
+
+In fact, Deacon Deusdona, who doubtless kept an eye on his guests,
+knew all about their manoeuvres and made haste to offer his services,
+in order that, "with the help of God" (_si Deus votis eorum favere
+dignaretur_), they should all work together. The deacon was evidently
+alarmed lest they should succeed without _his_ help.
+
+So, by way of preparation for the contemplated _vol avec effraction_
+they fasted three days; and then, at night, without being seen, they
+betook themselves to the basilica of St. Tiburtius, and tried to break
+open the altar erected over his remains. But the marble proving too
+solid, they descended to the crypt, and, "having evoked our Lord Jesus
+Christ and adored the holy martyrs," they proceeded to prise off the
+stone which covered the tomb, and thereby exposed the body of the most
+sacred martyr, Marcellinus, "whose head rested on a marble tablet on
+which his name was inscribed." The body was taken up with the
+greatest veneration, wrapped in a rich covering, and given over to the
+keeping of the deacon and his brother, Lunison, while the stone was
+replaced with such care that no sign of the theft remained.
+
+As sacrilegious proceedings of this kind were punishable with death by
+the Roman law, it seems not unnatural that Deacon Deusdona should have
+become uneasy, and have urged Ratleig to be satisfied with what he had
+got and be off with his spoils. But the notary having thus cleverly
+captured the blessed Marcellinus, thought it a pity he should be
+parted from the blessed Petrus, side by side with whom he had rested,
+for five hundred years and more, in the same sepulchre (as Eginhard
+pathetically observes); and the pious man could neither eat, drink,
+nor sleep, until he had compassed his desire to re-unite the saintly
+colleagues. This time, apparently in consequence of Deusdona's
+opposition to any further resurrectionist doings, he took counsel with
+a Greek monk, one Basil, and, accompanied by Hunus, but saying nothing
+to Deusdona, they committed another sacrilegious burglary, securing
+this time, not only the body of the blessed Petrus, but a quantity of
+dust, which they agreed the priest should take, and tell his employer
+that it was the remains of the blessed Tiburtius. How Deusdona was
+"squared," and what he got for his not very valuable complicity in
+these transactions, does not appear. But at last the relics were sent
+off in charge of Lunison, the brother of Deusdona, and the priest
+Hunus, as far as Pavia, while Ratleig stopped behind for a week to see
+if the robbery was discovered, and, presumably, to act as a blind, if
+any hue and cry was raised. But, as everything remained quiet, the
+notary betook himself to Pavia, where he found Lunison and Hunus
+awaiting his arrival. The notary's opinion of the character of his
+worthy colleagues, however, may be gathered from the fact that, having
+persuaded them to set out in advance along the road which he told them
+he was about to take, he immediately adopted another route, and,
+travelling by way of St. Maurice and the Lake of Geneva, eventually
+reached Soleure.
+
+Eginhard tells all this story with the most naive air of
+unconsciousness that there is anything remarkable about an abbot, and
+a high officer of state to boot, being an accessory, both before and
+after the fact, to a most gross and scandalous act of sacrilegious and
+burglarious robbery. And an amusing sequel to the story proves that,
+where relics were concerned, his friend Hildoin, another high
+ecclesiastical dignitary, was even less scrupulous than himself.
+
+On going to the palace early one morning, after the saints were safely
+bestowed at Seligenstadt, he found Hildoin waiting for an audience in
+the Emperor's antechamber, and began to talk to him about the miracle
+of the bloody exudation. In the course of conversation, Eginhard
+happened to allude to the remarkable fineness of the garment of the
+blessed Marcellinus. Whereupon Abbot Hildoin observed (to Eginhard's
+stupefaction) that his observation was quite correct. Much astonished
+at this remark from a person who was supposed not to have seen the
+relics, Eginhard asked him how he knew that? Upon this, Hildoin saw
+that he had better make a clean breast of it, and he told the
+following story, which he had received from his priestly agent, Hunus.
+While Hunus and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Eginhard's notary,
+Hunus (according to his own account) had robbed the robbers. The
+relics were placed in a church; and a number of laymen and clerics, of
+whom Hunus was one, undertook to keep watch over them. One night,
+however, all the watchers, save the wide-awake Hunus, went to sleep;
+and then, according to the story which this "sharp" ecclesiastic
+foisted upon his patron,
+
+     it was borne in upon his mind that there must be some great
+     reason why all the people, except himself, had suddenly
+     become somnolent; and, determining to avail himself of the
+     opportunity thus offered (_oblata occasione utendum_), he
+     rose and, having lighted a candle, silently approached the
+     chests. Then, having burnt through the threads of the seals
+     with the flame of the candle, he quickly opened the chests,
+     which had no locks;[41] and taking out portions of each of
+     the bodies which were thus exposed, he closed the chests
+     and connected the burnt ends of the threads with the seals
+     again, so that they appeared not to have been touched; and,
+     no one having seen him, he returned to his place. (Cap. iii.
+     23.)
+
+Hildoin went on to tell Eginhard that Hunus at first declared to him
+that these purloined relics belonged to St. Tiburtius; but afterwards
+confessed, as a great secret, how he had come by them, and he wound up
+his discourse thus:
+
+     They have a place of honour beside St. Medardus, where they
+     are worshipped with great veneration by all the people; but
+     whether we may keep them or not is for your judgment (Cap.
+     iii. 23.)
+
+Poor Eginhard was thrown into a state of great perturbation of mind by
+this revelation. An acquaintance of his had recently told him of a
+rumour that was spread about that Hunus had contrived to abstract
+_all_ the remains of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus while Eginhard's
+agents were in a drunken sleep; and that, while the real relics were
+in Abbot Hildoin's hands at St. Medardus, the shrine at Seligenstadt
+contained nothing but a little dust. Though greatly annoyed by this
+"execrable rumour, spread everywhere by the subtlety of the devil,"
+Eginhard had doubtless comforted himself by his supposed knowledge of
+its falsity, and he only now discovered how considerable a foundation
+there was for the scandal. There was nothing for it but to insist upon
+the return of the stolen treasures. One would have thought that the
+holy man, who had admitted himself to be knowingly a receiver of
+stolen goods, would have made instant restitution and begged only for
+absolution. But Eginhard intimates that he had very great difficulty
+in getting his brother abbot to see that even restitution was
+necessary.
+
+Hildoin's proceedings were not of such a nature as to lead any one to
+place implicit confidence in anything he might say; still less had his
+agent, priest Hunus, established much claim to confidence; and it is
+not surprising that Eginhard should have lost no time in summoning his
+notary and Lunison to his presence, in order that he might hear what
+they had to say about the business. They, however, at once protested
+that priest Hunus's story was a parcel of lies, and that after the
+relics left Rome no one had any opportunity of meddling with them.
+Moreover, Lunison, throwing himself at Eginhard's feet, confessed with
+many tears what actually took place. It will be remembered that after
+the body of St. Marcellinus was abstracted from its tomb, Ratleig
+deposited it in the house of Deusdona, in charge of the latter's
+brother, Lunison. But Hunus, being very much disappointed that he
+could not get hold of the body of St. Tiburtius, and afraid to go back
+to his abbot empty-handed, bribed Lunison with four pieces of gold and
+five of silver to give him access to the chest. This Lunison did, and
+Hunus helped himself to as much as would fill a gallon measure (_vas
+sextarii mensuram_) of the sacred remains. Eginhard's indignation at
+the "rapine" of this "nequissimus nebulo" is exquisitely droll. It
+would appear that the adage about the receiver being as bad as the
+thief was not current in the ninth century.
+
+Let us now briefly sum up the history of the acquisition of the
+relics. Eginhard makes a contract with Deusdona for the delivery of
+certain relics which the latter says he possesses. Eginhard makes no
+inquiry how he came by them; otherwise, the transaction is innocent
+enough.
+
+Deusdona turns out to be a swindler, and has no relics. Thereupon
+Eginhard's agent, after due fasting and prayer, breaks open the tombs
+and helps himself.
+
+Eginhard discovers by the self-betrayal of his brother abbot, Hildoin,
+that portions of his relics have been stolen and conveyed to the
+latter. With much ado he succeeds in getting them back.
+
+Hildoin's agent, Hunus, in delivering these stolen goods to him, at
+first declared they were the relics of St. Tiburtius, which Hildoin
+desired him to obtain; but afterwards invented a story of their being
+the product of a theft, which the providential drowsiness of his
+companions enabled him to perpetrate, from the relics which Hildoin
+well knew were the property of his friend.
+
+Lunison, on the contrary, swears that all his story is false, and that
+he himself was bribed by Hunus to allow him to steal what he pleased
+from the property confided to his own and his brother's care by their
+guest Ratleig. And the honest notary himself seems to have no
+hesitation about lying and stealing to any extent, where the
+acquisition of relics is the object in view.
+
+For a parallel to these transactions one must read a police report of
+the doings of a "long firm" or of a set of horse-coupers; yet Eginhard
+seems to be aware of nothing, but that he has been rather badly used
+by his friend Hildoin, and the "nequissimus nebulo" Hunus.
+
+It is not easy for a modern Protestant, still less for any one who has
+the least tincture of scientific culture, whether physical or
+historical, to picture to himself the state of mind of a man of the
+ninth century, however cultivated, enlightened, and sincere he may
+have been. His deepest convictions, his most cherished hopes, were
+bound up with the belief in the miraculous. Life was a constant battle
+between saints and demons for the possession of the souls of men. The
+most superstitious among our modern countrymen turn to supernatural
+agencies only when natural causes seem insufficient; to Eginhard and
+his friends the supernatural was the rule; and the sufficiency of
+natural causes was allowed only when there was nothing to suggest
+others.
+
+Moreover, it must be recollected that the possession of
+miracle-working relics was greatly coveted, not only on high, but on
+very low grounds. To a man like Eginhard, the mere satisfaction of the
+religious sentiment was obviously a powerful attraction. But, more
+than, this, the possession of such a treasure was an immense practical
+advantage. If the saints were duly flattered and worshipped, there was
+no telling what benefits might result from their interposition on your
+behalf. For physical evils, access to the shrine was like the grant of
+the use of a universal pill and ointment manufactory; and pilgrimages
+thereto might suffice to cleanse the performers from any amount of
+sin. A letter to Lupus, subsequently abbot of Ferrara, written while
+Eginhard was smarting under the grief caused by the loss of his
+much-loved wife Imma, affords a striking insight into the current view
+of the relation between the glorified saints and their worshippers.
+The writer shows that he is anything but satisfied with the way in
+which he has been treated by the blessed martyrs whose remains he has
+taken such pains to "convey" to Seligenstadt, and to honour there as
+they would never have been honoured in their Roman obscurity.
+
+     It is an aggravation of my grief and a reopening of my
+     wound, that our vows have been of no avail, and that the
+     faith which, we placed in the merits and intervention of the
+     martyrs has been utterly disappointed.
+
+We may admit, then, without impeachment of Eginhard's sincerity, or
+of his honour under all ordinary circumstances, that when piety,
+self-interest, the glory of the Church in general, and that of the
+church at Seligenstadt in particular, all pulled one way, even the
+workaday principles of morality were disregarded; and, _a fortiori_,
+anything like proper investigation of the reality of alleged miracles
+was thrown to the winds.
+
+And if this was the condition of mind of such a man as Eginhard, what
+is it not legitimate to suppose may have been that of Deacon Deusdona,
+Lunison, Hunus, and Company, thieves and cheats by their own
+confession, or of the probably hysterical nun, or of the professional
+beggars, for whose incapacity to walk and straighten themselves there
+is no guarantee but their own? Who is to make sure that the exorcist
+of the demon Wiggo was not just such another priest as Hunus; and is
+it not at least possible, when Eginhard's servants dreamed, night
+after night, in such a curiously coincident fashion, that a careful
+inquirer might have found they were very anxious to please their
+master.
+
+Quite apart from deliberate and conscious fraud (which is a rarer
+thing than is often supposed), people, whose mythopoeic faculty is
+once stirred, are capable of saying the thing that is not, and of
+acting as they should not, to an extent which is hardly imaginable by
+persons who are not so easily affected by the contagion of blind
+faith. There is no falsity so gross that honest men and, still more,
+virtuous women, anxious to promote a good cause, will not lend
+themselves to it without any clear consciousness of the moral bearings
+of what they are doing.
+
+The cases of miraculously-effected cures of which Eginhard is ocular
+witness appear to belong to classes of disease in which malingering is
+possible or hysteria presumable. Without modern means of diagnosis,
+the names given to them are quite worthless. One "miracle," however,
+in which the patient, a woman, was cured by the mere sight of the
+church in which the relics of the blessed martyrs lay, is an
+unmistakable case of dislocation of the lower jaw; and it is obvious
+that, as not unfrequently happens in such accidents in weakly
+subjects, the jaws slipped suddenly back into place, perhaps in
+consequence of a jolt, as the woman rode towards the church. (Cap. v.
+53.)[42]
+
+There is also a good deal said about a very questionable blind
+man--one Albricus (Alberich?)--who, having been cured, not of his
+blindness, but of another disease under which he laboured, took up his
+quarters at Seligenstadt, and came out as a prophet, inspired by the
+Archangel Gabriel. Eginhard intimates that his prophecies were
+fulfilled; but as he does not state exactly what they were, or how
+they were accomplished, the statement must be accepted with much
+caution. It is obvious that he was not the man to hesitate to "ease" a
+prophecy until it fitted, if the credit of the shrine of his favourite
+saints could be increased by such a procedure. There is no impeachment
+of his honour in the supposition. The logic of the matter is quite
+simple, if somewhat sophistical. The holiness of the church of the
+martyrs guarantees the reality of the appearance of the Archangel
+Gabriel there; and what the archangel says must be true. Therefore, if
+anything seem to be wrong, that must be the mistake of the
+transmitter; and, in justice to the archangel, it must be suppressed
+or set right. This sort of "reconciliation" is not unknown in quite
+modern times, and among people who would be very much shocked to be
+compared with a "benighted papist" of the ninth century.
+
+The readers of this essay are, I imagine, very largely composed of
+people who would be shocked to be regarded as anything but enlightened
+Protestants. It is not unlikely that those of them who have
+accompanied me thus far may be disposed to say, "Well, this is all
+very amusing as a story, but what is the practical interest of it? We
+are not likely to believe in the miracles worked by the spolia of SS.
+Marcellinus and Petrus, or by those of any other saints in the Roman
+Calendar."
+
+The practical interest is this: if you do not believe in these
+miracles recounted by a witness whose character and competency are
+firmly established, whose sincerity cannot be doubted, and who appeals
+to his sovereign and other contemporaries as witnesses of the truth of
+what he says, in a document of which a MS. copy exists, probably
+dating within a century of the author's death, why do you profess to
+believe in stories of a like character, which are found in documents
+of the dates and of the authorship of which nothing is certainly
+determined, and no known copies of which come within two or three
+centuries of the events they record? If it be true that the four
+Gospels and the Acts were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
+all that we know of these persons comes to nothing in comparison with
+our knowledge of Eginhard; and not only is there no proof that the
+traditional authors of these works wrote them, but very strong reasons
+to the contrary may be alleged. If, therefore, you refuse to believe
+that "Wiggo" was cast out of the possessed girl on Eginhard's
+authority, with what justice can you profess to believe that the
+legion of devils were cast out of the man among the tombs of the
+Gadarenes? And if, on the other hand, you accept Eginhard's evidence,
+why do you laugh at the supposed efficacy of relics and the
+saint-worship of the modern Romanists? It cannot be pretended, in the
+face of all evidence, that the Jews of the year 30 A.D., or
+thereabouts, were less imbued with the belief in the supernatural than
+were the Franks of the year 800 A.D. The same influences were at work
+in each case, and it is only reasonable to suppose that the results
+were the same. If the evidence of Eginhard is insufficient to lead
+reasonable men to believe in the miracles he relates, _a fortiori_ the
+evidence afforded by the Gospels and the Acts must be so.[43]
+
+But it may be said that no serious critic denies the genuineness of
+the four great Pauline Epistles--Galatians, First and Second
+Corinthians, and Romans--and that in three out of these four Paul lays
+claim to the power of working miracles.[44] Must we suppose,
+therefore, that the Apostle to the Gentiles has stated that which is
+false? But to how much does this so-called claim amount? It may mean
+much or little. Paul nowhere tells us what he did in this direction;
+and in his sore need to justify his assumption of apostleship against
+the sneers of his enemies, it is hardly likely that, if he had any
+very striking cases to bring forward, he would have neglected evidence
+so well calculated to put them to shame. And, without the slightest
+impeachment of Paul's veracity, we must further remember that his
+strongly-marked mental characteristics, displayed in unmistakable
+fashion by these Epistles, are anything but those which would justify
+us in regarding him as a critical witness respecting matters of fact,
+or as a trustworthy interpreter of their significance. When a man
+testifies to a miracle, he not only states a fact, but he adds an
+interpretation of the fact. We may admit his evidence as to the
+former, and yet think his opinion as to the latter worthless. If
+Eginhard's calm and objective narrative of the historical events of
+his time is no guarantee for the soundness of his judgment where the
+supernatural is concerned, the heated rhetoric of the Apostle of the
+Gentiles, his absolute confidence in the "inner light," and the
+extraordinary conceptions of the nature and requirements of logical
+proof which he betrays, in page after page of his Epistles, afford
+still less security.
+
+There is a comparatively modern man who shared to the full Paul's
+trust in the "inner light," and who, though widely different from the
+fiery evangelist of Tarsus in various obvious particulars, yet, if I
+am not mistaken, shares his deepest characteristics. I speak of George
+Fox, who separated himself from the current Protestantism of England,
+in the seventeenth century, as Paul separated himself from the
+Judaism of the first century, at the bidding of the "inner light"; who
+went through persecutions as serious as those which Paul enumerates;
+who was beaten, stoned, cast out for dead, imprisoned nine times,
+sometimes for long periods; who was in perils on land and perils at
+sea. George Fox was an even more widely-travelled missionary; while
+his success in founding congregations, and his energy in visiting
+them, not merely in Great Britain and Ireland and the West India
+Islands, but on the continent of Europe and that of North America,
+were no less remarkable. A few years after Fox began to preach, there
+were reckoned to be a thousand Friends in prison in the various gaols
+of England; at his death, less than fifty years after the foundation
+of the sect, there were 70,000 Quakers in the United Kingdom. The
+cheerfulness with which these people--women as well as men--underwent
+martyrdom in this country and in the New England States is one of the
+most remarkable facts in the history of religion.
+
+No one who reads the voluminous autobiography of "Honest George" can
+doubt the man's utter truthfulness; and though, in his multitudinous
+letters, he but rarely rises for above the incoherent commonplaces of
+a street preacher, there can be no question of his power as a speaker,
+nor any doubt as to the dignity and attractiveness of his personality,
+or of his possession of a large amount of practical good sense and
+governing faculty.
+
+But that George Fox had full faith in his own powers as a
+miracle-worker, the following passage of his autobiography (to which
+others might he added) demonstrates:--
+
+     Now after I was set at liberty from Nottingham gaol (where I
+     had been kept a prisoner a pretty long time) I travelled as
+     before, in the work of the Lord. And coming to Mansfield
+     Woodhouse, there was a distracted woman, under a doctor's
+     hand, with her hair let loose all about her ears; and he was
+     about to let her blood, she being first bound, and many
+     people being about her, holding her by violence; but he
+     could get no blood from her. And I desired them to unbind
+     her and let her alone; for they could not touch the spirit
+     in her by which she was tormented. So they did unbind her,
+     and I was moved to speak to her, and in the name of the Lord
+     to bid her be quiet and still. And she was so. And the
+     Lord's power settled her mind and she mended; and afterwards
+     received the truth and continued in it to her death. And the
+     Lord's name was honoured; to whom the glory of all His works
+     belongs. Many great and wonderful things were wrought by the
+     heavenly power in those days. For the Lord made bare his
+     omnipotent arm and manifested His power to the astonishment
+     of many; by the healing virtue whereof many have been
+     delivered from great infirmities, and the devils were made
+     subject through his name: of which particular instances
+     might be given beyond what this unbelieving age is able to
+     receive or bear.[45]
+
+It needs no long study of Fox's writings, however, to arrive at the
+conviction that the distinction between subjective and objective
+verities had not the same place in his mind as it has in that of an
+ordinary mortal. When an ordinary person would say "I thought so and
+so," or "I made up my mind to do so and so," George Fox says, "It was
+opened to me," or "at the command of God I did so and so." "Then at
+the command of God on the ninth day of the seventh month 1643 (Fox
+being just nineteen), I left my relations and brake off all
+familiarity or friendship with young or old." "About the beginning of
+the year 1647 I was moved of the Lord to go into Darbyshire." Fox
+hears voices and he sees visions, some of which he brings before the
+reader with apocalyptic power in the simple and strong English, alike
+untutored and undefiled, of which, like John Bunyan, his contemporary,
+he was a master.
+
+"And one morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over
+me and a temptation beset me; and I sate still. And it was said, _All
+things come by Nature_. And the elements and stars came over me; so
+that I was in a manner quite clouded with it.... And as I sate still
+under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true
+voice arose in me which said, _There is a living God who made all
+things_. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished away,
+and life rose over it all, and my heart was glad and I praised the
+living God" (p. 13).
+
+If George Fox could speak, as he proves in this and some other
+passages he could write, his astounding influence on the
+contemporaries of Milton and of Cromwell is no mystery. But this
+modern reproduction of the ancient prophet, with his "Thus saith the
+Lord," "This is the work of the Lord," steeped in supernaturalism and
+glorying in blind faith, is the mental antipodes of the philosopher,
+founded in naturalism and a fanatic for evidence, to whom these
+affirmations inevitably suggest the previous question: "How do you
+know that the Lord saith it?" "How do you know that the Lord doeth
+it?" and who is compelled to demand that rational ground for belief,
+without which, to the man of science, assent is merely an immoral
+pretence.
+
+And it is this rational ground of belief which the writers of the
+Gospels, no less than Paul, and Eginhard, and Fox, so little dream of
+offering that they would regard the demand for it as a kind of
+blasphemy.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [33] My citations are made from Teulet's _Einhardi omnia
+          quae extant opera_, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a
+          biography of the author, a history of the text, with
+          translations into French, and many valuable
+          annotations.
+
+     [34] At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt
+          and Baden.
+
+     [35] This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were
+          brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St.
+          Medardus at Soissons.
+
+     [36] Now included in Western Switzerland.
+
+     [37] Probably, according to Teulet, the present
+          Sandhoferfahrt, a little below the embouchure of the
+          Neckar.
+
+     [38] The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N.E. of
+          Heidelberg.
+
+     [39] In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite
+          accusations against witches was that they committed
+          just these enormities.
+
+     [40] It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about
+          the deacon, whose pledges he qualifies as _sponsiones
+          incertae_. But, to be sure, he wrote after events which
+          fully justified scepticism.
+
+     [41] The words are _scrinia sine clave_, which seems to mean
+          "having no key." But the circumstances forbid the idea
+          of breaking open.
+
+     [42] Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the "vana ac
+          superstitiosa praesumptio" of the poor woman's
+          companions in trying to alleviate her sufferings with
+          "herbs and frivolous incantations." Vain enough, no
+          doubt, but the "mulierculae" might have returned the
+          epithet "superstitious" with interest.
+
+     [43] Of course there is nothing new in this argument: but it
+          does not grow weaker by age. And the case of Eginhard
+          is far more instructive than that of Augustine, because
+          the former has so very frankly, though incidentally,
+          revealed to us not only his own mental and moral
+          habits, but those of the people about him.
+
+     [44] See 1 Cor. xii. 10-28; 2 Cor. vi. 12; Rom. xv. 19.
+
+     [45] _A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels,
+          Sufferings, and Christian Experiences, &c., of George
+          Fox_, Ed. 1694, pp. 27, 28.
+
+
+
+
+VI: POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES
+
+[1891]
+
+
+In the course of a discussion which has been going on during the last
+two years,[46] it has been maintained by the defenders of
+ecclesiastical Christianity that the demonology of the books of the
+New Testament is an essential and integral part of the revelation of
+the nature of the spiritual world promulgated by Jesus of Nazareth.
+Indeed, if the historical accuracy of the Gospels and of the Acts of
+the Apostles is to be taken for granted, if the teachings of the
+Epistles are divinely inspired, and if the universal belief and
+practice of the primitive Church are the models which all later times
+must follow, there can be no doubt that those who accept the
+demonology are in the right. It is as plain as language can make it,
+that the writers of the Gospels believed in the existence of Satan and
+the subordinate ministers of evil as strongly as they believed in
+that of God and the angels, and that they had an unhesitating faith in
+possession and in exorcism. No reader of the first three Gospels can
+hesitate to admit that, in the opinion of those persons among whom the
+traditions out of which they are compiled arose, Jesus held, and
+constantly acted upon, the same theory of the spiritual world. Nowhere
+do we find the slightest hint that he doubted the theory, or
+questioned the efficacy of the curative operations based upon it.
+
+Thus, when such a story as that about the Gadarene swine is placed
+before us, the importance of the decision, whether it is to be
+accepted or rejected, cannot be over-estimated. If the demonological
+part of it is to be accepted, the authority of Jesus is unmistakably
+pledged to the demonological system current in Judaea in the first
+century. The belief in devils who possess men and can be transferred
+from men to pigs, becomes as much a part of Christian dogma as any
+article of the creeds. If it is to be rejected, there are two
+alternative conclusions. Supposing the Gospels to be historically
+accurate, it follows that Jesus shared in the errors, respecting the
+nature of the spiritual world, prevalent in the age in which he lived
+and among the people of his nation. If, on the other hand, the Gospel
+traditions gives us only a popular version of the sayings and doings
+of Jesus, falsely coloured and distorted by the superstitious
+imaginings of the minds through which it had passed, what guarantee
+have we that a similar unconscious falsification, in accordance with
+preconceived ideas, may not have taken place in respect of other
+reported sayings and doings? What is to prevent a conscientious
+inquirer from finding himself at last in a purely agnostic position
+with respect to the teachings of Jesus, and consequently with respect
+to the fundamentals of Christianity?
+
+In dealing with the question whether the Gadarene story was to be
+believed or not, I confined myself altogether to a discussion of the
+value of the evidence in its favour. And, as it was easy to prove that
+this consists of nothing more than three partially discrepant, but
+often verbally coincident, versions of an original, of the authorship
+of which nobody knows anything, it appeared to me that it was wholly
+worthless. Even if the event described had been probable, such
+evidence would have required corroboration; being grossly improbable,
+and involving acts questionable in their moral and legal aspect, the
+three accounts sank to the level of mere tales.
+
+Thus far, I am unable, even after the most careful revision, to find
+any flaw in my argument; and I incline to think none has been found by
+my critics--at least, if they have, they have kept the discovery to
+themselves.
+
+In another part of my treatment of the case I have been less
+fortunate. I was careful to say that, for anything I could "absolutely
+prove to the contrary," there might be in the universe demonic beings
+who could enter into and possess men, and even be transferred from
+them to pigs; and that I, for my part, could not venture to declare _a
+priori_ that the existence of such entities was "impossible." I was,
+however, no less careful to remark that I thought the evidence
+hitherto adduced in favour of the existence of such beings
+"ridiculously insufficient" to warrant the belief in them.
+
+To my surprise, this statement of what, after the closest reflection,
+I still conceive to be the right conclusion, has been hailed as a
+satisfactory admission by opponents, and lamented as a perilous
+concession by sympathisers. Indeed, the tone of the comments of some
+candid friends has been such that I began to suspect that I must be
+entering upon a process of retrogressive metamorphosis which might
+eventually give me a place among the respectabilities. The prospect,
+perhaps, ought to have pleased me; but I confess I felt something of
+the uneasiness of the tailor who said that, whenever a customer's
+circumference was either much less, or much more, than at the last
+measurement, he at once sent in his bill; and I was not consoled until
+I recollected that, thirteen years ago, in discussing Hume's essay on
+"Miracles," I had quoted, with entire assent, the following passage
+from his writings: "Whatever is intelligible and can be distinctly
+conceived implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by
+any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning _a priori_."[47]
+
+Now, it is certain that the existence of demons can be distinctly
+conceived. In fact, from the earliest times of which we have any record
+to the present day, the great majority of mankind have had extremely
+distinct conceptions of them, and their practical life has been more or
+less shaped by those conceptions. Further, the notion of the existence
+of such beings "implies no contradiction." No doubt, in our experience,
+intelligence and volition are always found in connection with a certain
+material organisation, and never disconnected with it; while, by the
+hypothesis, demons have no such material substratum. But then, as
+everybody knows, the exact relation between mental and physical
+phenomena, even in ourselves, is the subject of endless dispute. We may
+all have our opinions as to whether mental phenomena have a substratum
+distinct from that which is assumed to underlie material phenomena, or
+not; though if any one thinks he has demonstrative evidence of either
+the existence or the non-existence of a "soul," all I can say is, his
+notion of demonstration differs from mine. But, if it be impossible to
+demonstrate the non-existence of a "substance" of mental phenomena--that
+is, of a soul--independent of material "substance"; if the idea of such
+a "soul" is "intelligible and can be distinctly conceived," then it
+follows that it is not justifiable to talk of demons as
+"impossibilities." The idea of their existence implies no more
+"contradiction" than does the idea of the existence of pathogenic
+microbes in the air. Indeed, the microbes constitute a tolerably exact
+physical analogue of the "powers of the air" of ancient belief.
+
+Strictly speaking, I am unaware of any thing that has a right to the
+title of an "impossibility" except a contradiction in terms. There are
+impossibilities logical, but none natural. A "round square," a
+"present past," "two parallel lines that intersect," are
+impossibilities, because the ideas denoted by the predicates, _round,
+present, intersect_, are contradictory of the ideas denoted by the
+subjects, _square, past, parallel_. But walking on water, or turning
+water into wine, or procreation without male intervention, or raising
+the dead, are plainly not "impossibilities" in this sense.
+
+In the affirmation, that a man walked upon water, the idea of the
+subject is not contradictory of that in the predicate. Naturalists are
+familiar with insects which walk on water, and imagination has no more
+difficulty in putting a man in place of the insect than it has in
+giving a man some of the attributes of a bird and making an angel of
+him; or in ascribing to him the ascensive tendencies of a balloon, as
+the "levitationists" do. Undoubtedly, there are very strong physical
+and biological arguments for thinking it extremely improbable that a
+man could be supported on the surface of the water as the insect is;
+or that his organisation could be compatible with the possession and
+use of wings; or that he could rise through the air without mechanical
+aid. Indeed, if we have any reason to believe that our present
+knowledge of the nature of things exhausts the possibilities of
+nature, we might properly say that the attributes of men are
+contradictory of walking on water, or floating in the air, and
+consequently that these acts are truly "impossible" for him. But it is
+sufficiently obvious, not only that we are at the beginning of our
+knowledge of nature, instead of having arrived at the end of it, but
+that the limitations of our faculties are such that we never can be in
+a position to set bounds to the possibilities of nature. We have
+knowledge of what is happening and of what has happened; of what will
+happen we have and can have no more than expectation, grounded on our
+more or less correct reading of past experience and prompted by the
+faith, begotten of that experience, that the order of nature in the
+future will resemble its order in the past.
+
+The same considerations apply to the other examples of supposed
+miraculous events. The change of water into wine undoubtedly implies a
+contradiction, and is assuredly "impossible," if we are permitted to
+assume that the "elementary bodies" of the chemists are, now and for
+ever, immutable. Not only, however, is a negative proposition of this
+kind incapable of proof, but modern chemistry is inclining towards the
+contrary doctrine. And if carbon can be got out of hydrogen or oxygen,
+the conversion of water into wine comes within range of scientific
+possibility--it becomes a mere question of molecular arrangement.
+
+As for virgin procreation, it is not only clearly imaginable, but
+modern biology recognises it as an everyday occurrence among some
+groups of animals. So with restoration to life after death. Certain
+animals, long as dry as mummies, and, to all appearance, as dead, when
+placed in proper conditions resume their vitality. It may be said that
+these creatures are not dead, but merely in a condition of suspended
+vitality. That, however, is only begging the question by making the
+incapacity for restoration to life part of the definition of death. In
+the absence of obvious lesions of some of the more important organs,
+it is no easy matter, even for experts, to say that an apparently dead
+man is incapable of restoration to life; and, in the recorded
+instances of such restoration, the want of any conclusive evidence
+that the man was dead is even more remarkable than the insufficiency
+of the testimony as to his coming to life again.
+
+It may be urged, however, that there is, at any rate, one miracle
+certified by all three of the Synoptic Gospels which really does
+"imply a contradiction," and is, therefore, "impossible" in the
+strictest sense of the word. This is the well-known story of the
+feeding of several thousand men, to the complete satisfaction of their
+hunger, by the distribution of a few loaves and fishes among them; the
+wondrousness of this already somewhat surprising performance being
+intensified by the assertion that the quantity of the fragments of the
+meal, left over, amounted to much more than the original store.
+
+Undoubtedly, if the operation is stated in its most general form; if
+it is to be supposed that a certain quantity, or magnitude, was
+divided into many more parts than the whole contained; and that, after
+the subtraction of several thousands of such parts, the magnitude of
+the remainder amounted to more than the original magnitude, there does
+seem to be an _a priori_ difficulty about accepting the proposition,
+seeing that it appears to be contradictory of the senses which we
+attach to the words "whole" and "parts" respectively. But this
+difficulty is removed if we reflect that we are not, in this case,
+dealing with magnitude in the abstract, or with "whole" and "parts" in
+their mathematical sense, but with concrete things, many of which are
+known to possess the power of growing, or increasing in magnitude.
+They thus furnish us with a conception of growth which we may, in
+imagination, apply to loaves and fishes; just as we may, in
+imagination, apply the idea of wings to the idea of a man. It must be
+admitted that a number of sheep might be fed on a pasture, and yet
+there might be more grass on the pasture, when the sheep left it, than
+there was at first. We may generalise this and other such facts into a
+perfectly definite conception of the increase of food in excess of
+consumption; which thus becomes a possibility, the limitations of
+which are to be discovered only by experience. Therefore, if it is
+asserted that cooked food has been made to grow in excess of rapid
+consumption, that statement cannot logically be rejected as an _a
+priori_ impossibility, however improbable experience of the
+capabilities of cooked food may justify us in holding it to be.
+
+On the strength of this undeniable improbability, however, we not only
+have a right to demand, but are morally bound to require, strong
+evidence in its favour before we even take it into serious
+consideration. But what is the evidence in this case? It is merely
+that of those three books,[48] which also concur in testifying to the
+truth of the monstrous legend of the herd of swine. In these three
+books, there are five accounts of a "miraculous feeding," which fall
+into two groups. Three of the stories, obviously derived from some
+common source, state that five loaves and two fishes sufficed to feed
+five thousand persons, and that twelve baskets of fragments remained
+over. In the two others, also obviously derived from a common source,
+distinct from the preceding, seven loaves and a few small fishes are
+distributed to four thousand persons, and seven baskets of fragments
+are left.
+
+If we were dealing with secular records, I suppose no candid and
+competent student of history would entertain much doubt that the
+originals of the three stories and of the two are themselves merely
+divergent versions of some primitive story which existed before the
+three Synoptic gospels were compiled out of the body of traditions
+current about Jesus. This view of the case, however, is incompatible
+with a belief in the historical accuracy of the first and second
+gospels.[49] For these agree in making Jesus himself speak of both the
+"four thousand" and the "five thousand" miracle. "When I brake the
+five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken
+pieces took ye up? They say unto him, twelve. And when the seven among
+the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces took ye up?
+And they say unto him, seven."
+
+Thus we are face to face with a dilemma the way of escape from which
+is not obvious. Either the "four thousand" and the "five thousand"
+stories are both historically true, and describe two separate events;
+or the first and second gospels testify to the very words of a
+conversation between Jesus and his disciples which cannot have been
+uttered.
+
+My choice between these alternatives is determined by no _a priori_
+speculations about the possibility or impossibility of such events as
+the feeding of the four or of the five thousand. But I ask myself the
+question, What evidence ought to be produced before I could feel
+justified in saying that I believed such an event to have occurred?
+That question is very easily answered. Proof must be given (1) of the
+weight of the loaves and fishes at starting; (2) of the distribution
+to 4-5,000 persons, without any additional supply, of this quantity
+and quality of food; (3) of the satisfaction of these people's
+appetites; (4) of the weight and quality of the fragments gathered up
+into the baskets. Whatever my present notions of probability and
+improbability may be, satisfactory testimony under these four heads
+would lead me to believe that they were erroneous; and I should accept
+the so-called miracle as a new and unexpected example of the
+possibilities of nature.
+
+But when, instead of such evidence, nothing is produced but two sets
+of discrepant stories, originating nobody knows how or when, among
+persons who could believe as firmly in devils which enter pigs, I
+confess that my feeling is one of astonishment that any one should
+expect a reasonable man to take such testimony seriously.
+
+I am anxious to bring about a clear understanding of the difference
+between "impossibilities" and "improbabilities," because mistakes on
+this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesiastical apologists of
+the type of the late Cardinal Newman; acute sophists, who think it
+fitting to employ their intellects, as burglars employ dark lanterns
+for the discovery of other people's weak places, while they carefully
+keep the light away from their own position.
+
+When it is rightly stated, the Agnostic view of "miracles" is, in my
+judgment, unassailable. We are _not_ justifiable in the _a priori_
+assertion that the order of nature, as experience has revealed it to
+us, cannot change. In arguing about the miraculous, the assumption is
+illegitimate, because it involves the whole point in dispute.
+Furthermore, it is an assumption which takes us beyond the range of
+our faculties. Obviously, no amount of past experience can warrant us
+in anything more than a correspondingly strong expectation for the
+present and future. We find, practically, that expectations, based
+upon careful observations of events, are, as a rule, trustworthy. We
+should be foolish indeed not to follow the only guide we have through
+life. But, for all that, our highest and surest generalisations remain
+on the level of justifiable expectations; that is, very high
+probabilities. For my part, I am unable to conceive of an intelligence
+shaped on the model of that of man, however superior it might be,
+which could be any better off than our own in this respect; that is,
+which could possess logically justifiable grounds for certainty about
+the constancy of the order of things, and therefore be in a position
+to declare that such and such events are impossible. Some of the old
+mythologies recognised this clearly enough. Beyond and above Zeus and
+Odin, there lay the unknown and inscrutable Fate which, one day or
+other, would crumple up them and the world they ruled to give place to
+a new order of things.
+
+I sincerely hope that I shall not be accused of Pyrrhonism, or of any
+desire to weaken the foundations of rational certainty. I have merely
+desired to point out that rational certainty is one thing, and talk
+about "impossibilities," or "violation of natural laws," another.
+Rational certainty rests upon two grounds--the one that the evidence
+in favour of a given statement is as good as it can be; the other that
+such evidence is plainly insufficient. In the former case, the
+statement is to be taken as true, in the latter as untrue; until
+something arises to modify the verdict, which, however properly
+reached, may always be more or less wrong, the best information being
+never complete, and the best reasoning being liable to fallacy.
+
+To quarrel with the uncertainty that besets us in intellectual
+affairs, would be about as reasonable as to object to live one's life,
+with due thought for the morrow, because no man can be sure he will be
+alive an hour hence. Such are the conditions imposed upon us by
+nature, and we have to make the best of them. And I think that the
+greatest mistake those of us who are interested in the progress of
+free thought can make is to overlook these limitations, and to deck
+ourselves with the dogmatic feathers which are the traditional
+adornment of our opponents. Let us be content with rational certainty,
+leaving irrational certainties to those who like to muddle their minds
+with them. I cannot see my way to say that demons are impossibilities;
+but I am not more certain about anything, than I am that the evidence
+tendered in favour of the demonology, of which the Gadarene story is a
+typical example, is utterly valueless. I cannot see my way to say that
+it is "impossible" that the hunger of thousands of men should be
+satisfied out of the food supplied by half-a-dozen loaves and a fish
+or two; but it seems to me monstrous that I should be asked to believe
+it on the faith of the five stories which testify to such an
+occurrence. It is true that the position that miracles are
+"impossible" cannot be sustained. But I know of nothing which calls
+upon me to qualify the grave verdict of Hume: "There is not to be
+found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of
+men, of such unquestioned goodness, education, and learning as to
+secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted
+integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to
+deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind
+as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any
+falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts performed in such a
+public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render
+the detection unavoidable: _all which circumstances are requisite to
+give us a full assurance in the testimony of men_."[50]
+
+     The preceding paper called forth the following criticism
+     signed "Agnosco," to which I append my reply:--
+
+     While agreeing generally with Professor Huxley's remarks
+     respecting miracles, in "The Agnostic Annual for 1892," it
+     has seemed to me that one of his arguments at least requires
+     qualification. The Professor, in maintaining that so-called
+     miraculous events are possible, although the evidence
+     adduced is not sufficient to render them probable, refers to
+     the possibility of changing water into wine by molecular
+     recomposition. He tells us that, "if carbon can be got out
+     of hydrogen or oxygen, the conversion of water into wine
+     comes within range of scientific possibility." But in
+     maintaining that miracles (so-called) have a _prospective_
+     possibility, Professor Huxley loses sight--at least, so it
+     appears to me--of the question of their _retrospective_
+     possibility. For, if it requires a certain degree of
+     knowledge and experience, yet far from having been attained,
+     to perform those acts which have been called miraculous, it
+     is not only improbable, but impossible likewise, that they
+     should have been done by men whose knowledge and experience
+     were considerably less than our own. It has seemed to me, in
+     fact, that this question of the retrospective possibility of
+     miracles is more important to us Rationalists, and, for the
+     matter of that, to Christians also, than the question of
+     their prospective possibility, with which Professor Huxley's
+     article mainly deals. Perhaps the Professor himself could
+     help those of us who think so, by giving us his opinion.
+
+     I am not sure that I fully appreciate the point raised by
+     "Agnosco," nor the distinction between the prospective and
+     the retrospective "possibility" of such a miracle as the
+     conversion of water into wine. If we may contemplate such an
+     event as "possible" in London in the year 1900, it must, in
+     the same sense, have been "possible" in the year 30 (or
+     thereabouts) at Cana in Galilee. If I should live so long, I
+     shall take great interest in the announcement of the
+     performance of this operation, say, nine years hence; and,
+     if there is no objection raised by chemical experts, I shall
+     accept the fact that the feat has been performed, without
+     hesitation. But I shall have no more ground for believing
+     the Cana story than I had before; simply because the
+     evidence in its favour will remain, for me, exactly where it
+     is. Possible or impossible, that evidence is worth nothing.
+     To leave the safe ground of "no evidence" for speculations
+     about impossibilities, consequent upon the want of
+     scientific knowledge of the supposed workers of miracles,
+     appears to me to be a mistake; especially in view of the
+     orthodox contention that they possessed supernatural power
+     and supernatural knowledge. T.H. HUXLEY.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [46] 1889-1891. See the next Essay (VII) and those which
+          follow it.
+
+     [47] _Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding_, p. 5;
+          1748. The passage is cited and discussed in my
+          _Hume_, pp. 132, 133.
+
+     [48] The story in John vi. 5-14 is obviously derived from
+          the "five thousand" narrative of the Synoptics.
+
+     [49] Matthew xvi. 5-12; Mark viii. 14-21.
+
+     [50] Hume, _Inquiry_, sec. X., part ii.
+
+
+
+
+VII: AGNOSTICISM
+
+[1889]
+
+
+Within the last few months, the public has received much and varied
+information on the subject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their
+future. Agnosticism exercised the orators of the Church Congress at
+Manchester.[51] It has been furnished with a set of "articles" fewer,
+but not less rigid, and certainly not less consistent than the
+thirty-nine; its nature has been analysed, and its future severely
+predicted by the most eloquent of that prophetical school whose Samuel
+is Auguste Comte. It may still be a question, however, whether the
+public is as much the wiser as might be expected, considering all the
+trouble that has been taken to enlighten it. Not only are the three
+accounts of the agnostic position sadly out of harmony with one
+another, but I propose to show cause for my belief that all three
+must be seriously questioned by any one who employs the term
+"agnostic" in the sense in which it was originally used. The learned
+Principal of King's College, who brought the topic of Agnosticism
+before the Church Congress, took a short and easy way of settling the
+business:--
+
+     But if this be so, for a man to urge, as an escape from this
+     article of belief, that he has no means of a scientific
+     knowledge of the unseen world, or of the future, is
+     irrelevant. His difference from Christians lies not in the
+     fact that he has no knowledge of these things, but that he
+     does not believe the authority on which they are stated. He
+     may prefer to call himself an Agnostic; but his real name is
+     an older one--he is an infidel; that is to say, an
+     unbeliever. The word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant
+     significance. Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and
+     it ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say
+     plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.[52]
+
+So much of Dr. Wace's address either explicitly or implicitly concerns
+me, that I take upon myself to deal with it; but, in so doing, it must
+be understood that I speak for myself alone. I am not aware that there
+is any sect of Agnostics; and if there be, I am not its acknowledged
+prophet or pope. I desire to leave to the Comtists the entire monopoly
+of the manufacture of imitation ecclesiasticism.
+
+Let us calmly and dispassionately consider Dr. Wace's appreciation of
+agnosticism. The agnostic, according to his view, is a person who says
+he has no means of attaining a scientific knowledge of the unseen
+world or of the future; by which somewhat loose phraseology Dr. Wace
+presumably means the theological unseen world and future. I cannot
+think this description happy, either in form or substance, but for the
+present it may pass. Dr. Wace continues, that it is not "his
+difference from Christians." Are there then any Christians who say
+that they know nothing about the unseen world and the future? I was
+ignorant of the fact, but I am ready to accept it on the authority of
+a professional theologian, and I proceed to Dr. Wace's next
+proposition.
+
+The real state of the case, then, is that the agnostic "does not
+believe the authority" on which "these things" are stated, which
+authority is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fashioned "infidel" who
+is afraid to own to his right name. As "Presbyter is priest writ
+large," so is "agnostic" the mere Greek equivalent for the Latin
+"infidel." There is an attractive simplicity about this solution of
+the problem; and it has that advantage of being somewhat offensive to
+the persons attacked, which is so dear to the less refined sort of
+controversialist. The agnostic says, "I cannot find good evidence that
+so and so is true." "Ah," says his adversary, seizing his opportunity,
+"then you declare that Jesus Christ was untruthful, for he said so and
+so;" a very telling method of rousing prejudice. But suppose that the
+value of the evidence as to what Jesus may have said and done, and as
+to the exact nature and scope of his authority, is just that which the
+agnostic finds it most difficult to determine. If I venture to doubt
+that the Duke of Wellington gave the command "Up, Guards, and at 'em!"
+at Waterloo, I do not think that even Dr. Wace would accuse me of
+disbelieving the Duke. Yet it would be just as reasonable to do this
+as to accuse any one of denying what Jesus said, before the
+preliminary question as to what he did say is settled.
+
+Now, the question as to what Jesus really said and did is strictly a
+scientific problem, which is capable of solution by no other methods
+than those practised by the historian and the literary critic. It is a
+problem of immense difficulty, which has occupied some of the best
+heads in Europe for the last century; and it is only of late years
+that their investigations have begun to converge towards one
+conclusion.[53]
+
+That kind of faith which Dr. Wace describes and lauds is of no use
+here. Indeed, he himself takes pains to destroy its evidential value.
+
+"What made the Mahommedan world? Trust and faith in the declarations
+and assurances of Mahommed. And what made the Christian world? Trust
+and faith in the declarations and assurances of Jesus Christ and His
+Apostles" (l.c. p. 253). The triumphant tone of this imaginary
+catechism leads me to suspect that its author has hardly appreciated
+its full import. Presumably, Dr. Wace regards Mahommed as an
+unbeliever, or, to use the term which he prefers, infidel; and
+considers that his assurances have given rise to a vast delusion which
+has led, and is leading, millions of men straight to everlasting
+punishment. And this being so, the "Trust and faith" which have "made
+the Mahommedan world," in just the same sense as they have "made the
+Christian world," must be trust and faith in falsehoods. No man who
+has studied history, or even attended to the occurrences of everyday
+life, can doubt the enormous practical value of trust and faith; but
+as little will he be inclined to deny that this practical value has
+not the least relation to the reality of the objects of that trust and
+faith. In examples of patient constancy of faith and of unswerving
+trust, the "Acta Martyrum" do not excel the annals of Babism.[54]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The discussion upon which we have now entered goes so thoroughly to
+the root of the whole matter; the question of the day is so
+completely, as the author of "Robert Elsmere" says, the value of
+testimony, that I shall offer no apology for following it out somewhat
+in detail; and, by way of giving substance to the argument, I shall
+base what I have to say upon a case, the consideration of which lies
+strictly within the province of natural science, and of that
+particular part of it known as the physiology and pathology of the
+nervous system.
+
+I find, in the second Gospel (chap. v.), a statement, to all
+appearance intended to have the same evidential value as any other
+contained in that history. It is the well-known story of the devils
+who were cast out of a man, and ordered, or permitted, to enter into a
+herd of swine, to the great loss and damage of the innocent Gerasene,
+or Gadarene, pig owners. There can be no doubt that the narrator
+intends to convey to his readers his own conviction that this casting
+out and entering in were effected by the agency of Jesus of Nazareth;
+that, by speech and action, Jesus enforced this conviction; nor does
+any inkling of the legal and moral difficulties of the case manifest
+itself.
+
+On the other hand, everything that I know of physiological and
+pathological science leads me to entertain a very strong conviction
+that the phenomena ascribed to possession are as purely natural as
+those which constitute small-pox; everything that I know of
+anthropology leads me to think that the belief in demons and
+demoniacal possession is a mere survival of a once universal
+superstition, and that its persistence, at the present time, is pretty
+much in the inverse ratio of the general instruction, intelligence,
+and sound judgment of the population among whom it prevails.
+Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the wanton
+destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of evil
+example. Again, the study of history, and especially of that of the
+fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, leaves no shadow of
+doubt on my mind that the belief in the reality of possession and of
+witchcraft, justly based, alike by Catholics and Protestants, upon
+this and innumerable other passages in both the Old and New
+Testaments, gave rise, through the special influence of Christian
+ecclesiastics, to the most horrible persecutions and judicial murders
+of thousands upon thousands of innocent men, women, and children. And
+when I reflect that the record of a plain and simple declaration upon
+such an occasion as this, that the belief in witchcraft and possession
+is wicked nonsense, would have rendered the long agony of mediaeval
+humanity impossible, I am prompted to reject, as dishonouring, the
+supposition that such declaration was withheld out of condescension to
+popular error.
+
+"Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the man" (Mark v. 8),[55] are
+the words attributed to Jesus. If I declare, as I have no hesitation
+in doing, that I utterly disbelieve in the existence of "unclean
+spirits," and, consequently, in the possibility of their "coming
+forth" out of a man, I suppose that Dr. Wace will tell me I am
+disregarding the testimony "of our Lord." For, if these words were
+really used, the most resourceful of reconcilers can hardly venture to
+affirm that they are compatible with a disbelief "in these things." As
+the learned and fair-minded, as well as orthodox, Dr. Alexander
+remarks, in an editorial note to the article "Demoniacs," in the
+"Biblical Cyclopaedia" (vol. i. p. 664, note):--
+
+     ... On the lowest grounds on which our Lord and His Apostles
+     can be placed they must, at least, be regarded as _honest_
+     men. Now, though honest speech does not require that words
+     should be used always and only in their etymological sense,
+     it does require that they should not be used so as to affirm
+     what the speaker knows to be false. Whilst, therefore, our
+     Lord and His Apostles might use the word [Greek: daimonizesthai],
+     or the phrase, [Greek: daimonion echein] as a popular
+     description of certain diseases, without giving in to the
+     belief which lay at the source of such a mode of expression,
+     they could not speak of demons entering into a man, or being
+     cast out of him, without pledging themselves to the belief of
+     an actual possession of the man by the demons. (Campbell,
+     _Prel. Diss._ vi. 1, 10.) If, consequently, they did not hold
+     this belief, they spoke not as honest men.
+
+The story which we are considering does not rest on the authority of
+the second Gospel alone. The third confirms the second, especially in
+the matter of commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man
+(Luke viii. 29); and, although the first Gospel either gives a
+different version of the same story, or tells another of like kind,
+the essential point remains: "If thou cast us out, send us away into
+the herd of swine. And He said unto them: Go!" (Matt. viii. 31, 32).
+
+If the concurrent testimony of the three synoptics, then, is really
+sufficient to do away with all rational doubt as to a matter of fact
+of the utmost practical and speculative importance--belief or
+disbelief in which may affect, and has affected, men's lives and their
+conduct towards other men, in the most serious way--then I am bound to
+believe that Jesus implicitly affirmed himself to possess a "knowledge
+of the unseen world," which afforded full confirmation of the belief
+in demons and possession current among his contemporaries. If the
+story is true, the mediaeval theory of the invisible world may be, and
+probably is, quite correct; and the witch-finders, from Sprenger to
+Hopkins and Mather, are much-maligned men.
+
+On the other hand, humanity, noting the frightful consequences of this
+belief; common sense, observing the futility of the evidence on which
+it is based, in all cases that have been properly investigated;
+science, more and more seeing its way to inclose all the phenomena of
+so-called "possession" within the domain of pathology, so far as they
+are not to be relegated to that of the police--all these powerful
+influences concur in warning us, at our peril, against accepting the
+belief without the most careful scrutiny of the authority on which it
+rests.
+
+I can discern no escape from this dilemma: either Jesus said what he
+is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former case, it is
+inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the "unseen
+world" should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon
+the authority of the synoptic Gospels. If their report on a matter of
+such stupendous and far-reaching practical import as this is
+untrustworthy, how can we be sure of its trustworthiness in other
+cases? The favourite "earth," in which the hard-pressed reconciler
+takes refuge, that the Bible does not profess to teach science,[56] is
+stopped in this instance. For the question of the existence of demons
+and of possession by them, though it lies strictly within the province
+of science, is also of the deepest moral and religious significance.
+If physical and mental disorders are caused by demons, Gregory of
+Tours and his contemporaries rightly considered that relics and
+exorcists were more useful than doctors; the gravest questions arise
+as to the legal and moral responsibilities of persons inspired by
+demoniacal impulses; and our whole conception of the universe and of
+our relations to it becomes totally different from what it would be on
+the contrary hypothesis.
+
+The theory of life of an average mediaeval Christian was as different
+from that of an average nineteenth-century Englishman as that of a
+West African negro is now, in these respects. The modern world is
+slowly, but surely, shaking off these and other monstrous survivals of
+savage delusions; and, whatever happens, it will not return to that
+wallowing in the mire. Until the contrary is proved, I venture to
+doubt whether, at this present moment, any Protestant theologian, who
+has a reputation to lose, will say that he believes the Gadarene
+story.
+
+The choice then lies between discrediting those who compiled the
+Gospel biographies and disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple
+souls, thought to honour by preserving such traditions of the exercise
+of his authority over Satan's invisible world. This is the dilemma. No
+deep scholarship, nothing but a knowledge of the revised version (on
+which it is to be supposed all that mere scholarship can do has been
+done), with the application thereto of the commonest canons of common
+sense, is needful to enable us to make a choice between its
+alternatives. It is hardly doubtful that the story, as told in the
+first Gospel, is merely a version of that told in the second and
+third. Nevertheless, the discrepancies are serious and irreconcilable;
+and, on this ground alone, a suspension of judgment, at the least, is
+called for. But there is a great deal more to be said. From the dawn
+of scientific biblical criticism until the present day, the evidence
+against the long-cherished notion that the three synoptic Gospels are
+the works of three independent authors, each prompted by Divine
+inspiration, has steadily accumulated, until, at the present time,
+there is no visible escape from the conclusion that each of the three
+is a compilation consisting of a groundwork common to all three--the
+threefold tradition; and of a superstructure, consisting, firstly, of
+matter common to it with one of the others, and, secondly, of matter
+special to each. The use of the terms "groundwork" and "superstructure"
+by no means implies that the latter must be of later date than the
+former. On the contrary, some parts of it may be, and probably are,
+older than some parts of the groundwork.[57]
+
+The story of the Gadarene swine belongs to the groundwork; at least,
+the essential part of it, in which the belief in demoniac possession
+is expressed, does; and therefore the compilers of the first, second,
+and third Gospels, whoever they were, certainly accepted that belief
+(which, indeed, was universal among both Jews and pagans at that
+time), and attributed it to Jesus.
+
+What, then, do we know about the originator, or originators, of this
+groundwork--of that threefold tradition which all three witnesses (in
+Paley's phrase) agree upon--that we should allow their mere statements
+to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of common sense, of
+exact science, and to imperil the respect which all would be glad to
+be able to render to their Master?
+
+Absolutely nothing.[58] There is no proof, nothing more than a fair
+presumption, that any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in
+which we find it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the
+second century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the
+events recorded. And, between that time and the date of the oldest
+extant manuscripts of the Gospels, there is no telling what additions
+and alterations and interpolations may have been made. It may be said
+that this is all mere speculation, but it is a good deal more. As
+competent scholars and honest men, our revisers have felt compelled to
+point out that such things have happened even since the date of the
+oldest known manuscripts. The oldest two copies of the second Gospel
+end with the 8th verse of the 16th chapter; the remaining twelve
+verses are spurious, and it is noteworthy that the maker of the
+addition has not hesitation to introduce a speech in which Jesus
+promises his disciples that "in My name shall they cast out devils."
+
+The other passage "rejected to the margin" is still more instructive.
+It is that touching apologue, with its profound ethical sense, of the
+woman taken in adultery--which, if internal evidence were an
+infallible guide, might well be affirmed to be a typical example of
+the teachings of Jesus. Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly, "Most of
+the ancient authorities emit John vii. 53-viii. 11." Now let any
+reasonable man ask himself this question. If, after an approximate
+settlement of the canon of the New Testament, and even later than the
+fourth and fifth centuries, literary fabricators had the skill and the
+audacity to make such additions and interpolations as these, what may
+they have done when no one had thought of a canon; when oral
+tradition, still unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such
+written records as may have existed in the latter portion of the first
+century? Or, to take the other alternative, if those who gradually
+settled the canon did not know of the existence of the oldest codices
+which have come down to us; or if, knowing them, they rejected their
+authority, what is to be thought of their competency as critics of the
+text?
+
+People who object to free criticism of the Christian Scriptures forget
+that they are what they are in virtue of very free criticism; unless
+the advocates of inspiration are prepared to affirm that the majority
+of influential ecclesiastics during several centuries were safeguarded
+against error. For, even granting that some books of the period were
+inspired, they were certainly few amongst many; and those who selected
+the canonical books, unless they themselves were also inspired, must
+be regarded in the light of mere critics, and, from the evidence they
+have left of their intellectual habits, very uncritical critics. When
+one thinks that such delicate questions as those involved fell into
+the hands of men like Papias (who believed in the famous millenarian
+grape story); of Irenaeus with his "reasons" for the existence of only
+four Gospels; and of such calm and dispassionate judges as Tertullian,
+with his "Credo quia impossibile": the marvel is that the selection
+which constitutes our New Testament is as free as it is from obviously
+objectionable matter. The apocryphal Gospels certainly deserve to be
+apocryphal; but one may suspect that a little more critical
+discrimination would have enlarged the Apocrypha not inconsiderably.
+
+At this point a very obvious objection arises and deserves full and
+candid consideration. It may be said that critical scepticism carried
+to the length suggested is historical pyrrhonism; that if we are
+altogether to discredit an ancient or a modern historian, because he
+has assumed fabulous matter to be true, it will be as well to give up
+paying any attention to history. It may be said, and with great
+justice, that Eginhard's "Life of Charlemagne" is none the less
+trustworthy because of the astounding revelation of credulity, of lack
+of judgment, and even of respect for the eighth commandment, which he
+has unconsciously made in the "History of the Translation of the
+Blessed Martyrs Marcellinus and Paul." Or, to go no further back than
+the last number of the _Nineteenth Century_, surely that excellent
+lady, Miss Strickland, is not to be refused all credence, because of
+the myth about the second James's remains which she seems to have
+unconsciously invented.
+
+Of course this is perfectly true. I am afraid there is no man alive
+whose witness could be accepted, if the condition precedent were proof
+that he had never invented and promulgated a myth. In the minds of all
+of us there are little places here and there, like the indistinguishable
+spots on a rock which give foothold to moss or stonecrop; on which, if
+the germ of a myth fall, it is certain to grow, without in the least
+degree affecting our accuracy or truthfulness elsewhere. Sir Walter
+Scott knew that he could not repeat a story without, as he said,
+"giving it a new hat and stick." Most of us differ from Sir Walter
+only in not knowing about this tendency of the mythopoeic faculty to
+break out unnoticed. But it is also perfectly true that the mythopoeic
+faculty is not equally active in all minds, nor in all regions and
+under all conditions of the same mind. David Hume was certainly not so
+liable to temptation as the Venerable Bede, or even as some recent
+historians who could be mentioned; and the most imaginative of
+debtors, if he owes five pounds, never makes an obligation to pay a
+hundred out of it. The rule of common sense is _prima facie_ to trust
+a witness in all matters, in which neither his self-interest, his
+passions, his prejudices, nor that love of the marvellous, which is
+inherent to a greater or less degree in all mankind, are strongly
+concerned; and, when they are involved, to require corroborative
+evidence in exact proportion to the contravention of probability by
+the thing testified.
+
+Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am unreasonably
+sceptical, if I say that the existence of demons who can be
+transferred from a man to a pig, does thus contravene probability. Let
+me be perfectly candid. I admit I have no _a priori_ objection to
+offer. There are physical things, such as _taeniae_ and _trichinae_,
+which can be transferred from men to pigs, and _vice versa_, and which
+do undoubtedly produce most diabolical and deadly effects on both.
+For anything I can absolutely prove to the contrary, there may be
+spiritual things capable of the same transmigration, with like
+effects. Moreover I am bound to add that perfectly truthful persons,
+for whom I have the greatest respect, believe in stories about spirits
+of the present day, quite as improbable as that we are considering.
+
+So I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am unable to show cause why
+these transferable devils should not exist; nor can I deny that, not
+merely the whole Roman Church, but many Wacean "infidels" of no mean
+repute, do honestly and firmly believe that the activity of such like
+demonic beings is in full swing in this year of grace 1889.
+
+Nevertheless, as good Bishop Butler says, "probability is the guide of
+life;" and it seems to me that this is just one of the cases in which
+the canon of credibility and testimony, which I have ventured to lay
+down, has full force. So that, with the most entire respect for many
+(by no means for all) of our witnesses for the truth of demonology,
+ancient and modern, I conceive their evidence on this particular
+matter to be ridiculously insufficient to warrant their
+conclusion.[59]
+
+After what has been said I do not think that any sensible man, unless
+he happen to be angry, will accuse me of "contradicting the Lord and
+His Apostles" if I reiterate my total disbelief in the whole Gadarene
+story. But, if that story is discredited, all the other stories of
+demoniac possession fall under suspicion. And if the belief in demons
+and demoniac possession, which forms the sombre background of the
+whole picture of primitive Christianity, presented to us in the New
+Testament, is shaken, what is to be said, in any case, of the
+uncorroborated testimony of the Gospels with respect to "the unseen
+world"?
+
+I am not aware that I have been influenced by any more bias in regard
+to the Gadarene story than I have been in dealing with other cases of
+like kind the investigation of which has interested me. I was brought
+up in the strictest school of evangelical orthodoxy; and when I was
+old enough to think for myself, I started upon my journey of inquiry
+with little doubt about the general truth of what I had been taught;
+and with that feeling of the unpleasantness of being called an
+"infidel" which, we are told, is so right and proper. Near my
+journey's end, I find myself in a condition of something more than
+mere doubt about these matters.
+
+In the course of other inquiries, I have had to do with fossil remains
+which looked quite plain at a distance, and became more and more
+indistinct as I tried to define their outline by close inspection.
+There was something there--something which, if I could win assurance
+about it, might mark a new epoch in the history of the earth; but,
+study as long as I might, certainty eluded my grasp. So had it been
+with me in my efforts to define the grand figure of Jesus as it lies
+in the primary strata of Christian literature. Is he the kindly,
+peaceful Christ depicted in the Catacombs? Or is he the stern Judge
+who frowns upon the altar of SS. Cosmas and Damianus? Or can he be
+rightly represented by the bleeding ascetic, broken down by physical
+pain, of too many mediaeval pictures? Are we to accept the Jesus of the
+second, or the Jesus of the fourth Gospel, as the true Jesus? What did
+he really say and do; and how much that is attributed to him, in
+speech and action, is the embroidery of the various parties into which
+his followers tended to split themselves within twenty years of his
+death, when even the threefold tradition was only nascent?
+
+If any one will answer these questions for me with something more to
+the point than feeble talk about the "cowardice of agnosticism," I
+shall be deeply his debtor. Unless and until they are satisfactorily
+answered, I say of agnosticism in this matter, "_J'y suis, et j'y
+reste_."
+
+But, as we have seen, it is asserted that I have no business to call
+myself an agnostic; that, if I am not a Christian I am an infidel; and
+that I ought to call myself by that name of "unpleasant significance."
+Well, I do not care much what I am called by other people, and if I
+had at my side all those who, since the Christian era, have been
+called infidels by other folks, I could not desire better company. If
+these are my ancestors, I prefer, with the old Frank, to be with them
+wherever they are. But there are several points in Dr. Wace's
+contention which must be elucidated before I can even think of
+undertaking to carry out his wishes. I must, for instance, know what a
+Christian is. Now what is a Christian? By whose authority is the
+signification of that term defined? Is there any doubt that the
+immediate followers of Jesus, the "sect of the Nazarenes," were
+strictly orthodox Jews differing from other Jews not more than the
+Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes differed from one another;
+in fact, only in the belief that the Messiah, for whom the rest of
+their nation waited, had come? Was not their chief, "James, the
+brother of the Lord," reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and
+Nazarene? At the famous conference which, according to the Acts, took
+place at Jerusalem, does not James declare that "myriads" of Jews,
+who, by that time, had become Nazarenes, were "all zealous for the
+Law"? Was not the name of "Christian" first used to denote the
+converts to the doctrine promulgated by Paul and Barnabas at Antioch?
+Does the subsequent history of Christianity leave any doubt that, from
+this time forth, the "little rift within the lute" caused by the new
+teaching, developed, if not inaugurated, at Antioch, grew wider and
+wider, until the two types of doctrines irreconcilably diverged? Did
+not the primitive Nazarenism, or Ebionism, develop into the
+Nazarenism, and Ebionism, and Elkasaitism of later ages, and finally
+die out in obscurity and condemnation, as damnable heresy; while the
+younger doctrine throve and pushed out its shoots into that endless
+variety of sects, of which the three strongest survivors are the Roman
+and Greek Churches and modern Protestantism?
+
+Singular state of things! If I were to profess the doctrine which was
+held by "James, the brother of the Lord," and by every one of the
+"myriads" of his followers and co-religionists in Jerusalem up to
+twenty or thirty years after the Crucifixion (and one knows not how
+much later at Pella), I should be condemned, with unanimity, as an
+ebionising heretic by the Roman, Greek, and Protestant Churches! And,
+probably, this hearty and unanimous condemnation of the creed, held by
+those who were in the closest personal relation with their Lord, is
+almost the only point upon which they would be cordially of one mind.
+On the other hand, though I hardly dare imagine such a thing, I very
+much fear that the "pillars" of the primitive Hierosolymitan Church
+would have considered Dr. Wace an infidel. No one can read the famous
+second chapter of Galatians and the book of Revelation without seeing
+how narrow was even Paul's escape from a similar fate. And, if
+ecclesiastical history is to be trusted, the thirty-nine articles, be
+they right or wrong, diverge from the primitive doctrine of the
+Nazarenes vastly more than even Pauline Christianity did.
+
+But, further than this, I have great difficulty in assuring myself
+that even James, "the brother of the Lord," and his "myriads" of
+Nazarenes, properly represented the doctrines of their Master. For it
+is constantly asserted by our modern "pillars" that one of the chief
+features of the work of Jesus was the instauration of Religion by the
+abolition of what our sticklers for articles and liturgies, with,
+unconscious humour, call the narrow restrictions of the Law. Yet, if
+James knew this, how could the bitter controversy with Paul have
+arisen; and why did not one or the other side quote any of the various
+sayings of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels, which directly bear on the
+question--sometimes, apparently, in opposite directions?
+
+So, if I am asked to call myself an "infidel," I reply: To what
+doctrine do you ask me to be faithful? Is it that contained in the
+Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds? My firm belief is that the
+Nazarenes, say of the year 40, headed by James, would have stopped
+their ears and thought worthy of stoning the audacious man who
+propounded it to them. Is it contained in the so-called Apostle's
+Creed? I am pretty sure that even that would have created a
+recalcitrant commotion at Pella in the year 70, among the Nazarenes of
+Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers of Titus. And yet, if the
+unadulterated tradition of the teachings of "the Nazarene" were to be
+found anywhere, it surely should have been amidst those not very aged
+disciples who may have heard them as they were delivered.
+
+Therefore, however sorry I may be to be unable to demonstrate that, if
+necessary, I should not be afraid to call myself an "infidel," I
+cannot do it. "Infidel" is a term of reproach, which Christians and
+Mahommedans, in their modesty, agree to apply to those who differ from
+them. If he had only thought of it, Dr. Wace might have used the term
+"miscreant," which, with the same etymological signification, has the
+advantage of being still more "unpleasant" to the persons to whom it
+is applied. But why should a man be expected to call himself a
+"miscreant" or an "infidel"? That St. Patrick "had two birthdays
+because he was a twin" is a reasonable and intelligible utterance
+beside that of the man who should declare himself to be an infidel on
+the ground of denying his own belief. It may be logically, if not
+ethically, defensible that a Christian should call a Mahommedan an
+infidel and _vice versa_; but, on Dr. Wace's principles, both ought to
+call themselves infidels, because each applies the term to the other.
+
+Now I am afraid that all the Mahommedan world would agree in
+reciprocating that appellation to Dr. Wace himself. I once visited the
+Hazar Mosque, the great University of Mohammedanism, in Cairo, in
+ignorance of the fact that I was unprovided with proper authority. A
+swarm of angry undergraduates, as I suppose I ought to call them, came
+buzzing about me and my guide; and if I had known Arabic, I suspect
+that "dog of an infidel" would have been by no means the most
+"unpleasant" of the epithets showered upon me, before I could explain
+and apologise for the mistake. If I had had the pleasure of Dr. Wace's
+company on that occasion, the undiscriminative followers of the
+Prophet would, I am afraid, have made no difference between us; not
+even if they had known that he was the head of an orthodox Christian
+seminary. And I have not the smallest doubt that even one of the
+learned mollahs, if his grave courtesy would have permitted him to say
+anything offensive to men of another mode of belief, would have told
+us that he wondered we did not find it "very unpleasant" to disbelieve
+in the Prophet of Islam.
+
+From what precedes, I think it becomes sufficiently clear that Dr.
+Wace's account of the origin of the name of "Agnostic" is quite wrong.
+Indeed, I am bound to add that very slight effort to discover the
+truth would have convinced him that, as a matter of fact, the term
+arose otherwise. I am loath to go over an old story once more; but
+more than one object which I have in view will be served by telling it
+a little more fully than it has yet been told.
+
+Looking back nearly fifty years, I see myself as a boy, whose
+education has been interrupted, and who, intellectually, was left, for
+some years, altogether to his own devices. At that time, I was a
+voracious and omnivorous reader; a dreamer and speculator of the first
+water, well endowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and
+every subject, which is the blessed compensation of youth and
+inexperience. Among the books and essays, on all sorts of topics from
+metaphysics to heraldry, which I read at this time, two left indelible
+impressions on my mind. One was Guizot's "History of Civilization,"
+the other was Sir William Hamilton's essay "On the Philosophy of the
+Unconditioned," which I came upon, by chance, in an odd volume of the
+"Edinburgh Review." The latter was certainly strange reading for a
+boy, and I could not possibly have understood a great deal of it;[60]
+nevertheless, I devoured it with avidity, and it stamped upon my mind
+the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and important of
+questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers; and that
+the limitation of our faculties, in a great number of cases, renders
+real answers to such questions, not merely actually impossible, but
+theoretically inconceivable.
+
+Philosophy and history having laid hold of me in this eccentric
+fashion, have never loosened their grip. I have no pretension to be an
+expert in either subject; but the turn for philosophical and
+historical reading, which rendered Hamilton and Guizot attractive to
+me, has not only filled many lawful leisure hours, and still more
+sleepless ones, with the repose of changed mental occupation, but has
+not unfrequently disputed my proper work-time with my liege lady,
+Natural Science. In this way I have found it possible to cover a good
+deal of ground in the territory of philosophy; and all the more easily
+that I have never cared much about A's or B's opinions, but have
+rather sought to know what answer he had to give to the questions I
+had to put to him--that of the limitation of possible knowledge being
+the chief. The ordinary examiner, with his "State the views of
+So-and-so," would have floored me at any time. If he had said what do
+_you_ think about any given problem, I might have got on fairly well.
+
+The reader who has had the patience to follow the enforced, but
+unwilling, egotism of this veritable history (especially if his
+studies have led him in the same direction), will now see why my mind
+steadily gravitated towards the conclusions of Hume and Kant, so well
+stated by the latter in a sentence, which I have quoted elsewhere.
+
+"The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure
+reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an
+organon for the enlargement [of knowledge], but as a discipline for
+its delimitation; and, instead of discovering truth, has only the
+modest merit of preventing error."[61]
+
+When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I
+was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an
+idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I
+learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last,
+I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of
+these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of
+these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed
+from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain
+"gnosis,"--had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of
+existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong
+conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on
+my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that
+opinion. Like Dante,
+
+    Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
+      Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
+
+but, unlike Dante, I cannot add,
+
+    Che la diritta via era smarrita.
+
+On the contrary, I had, and have, the firmest conviction that I never
+left the "verace via"--the straight road; and that this road led
+nowhere else but into the dark depths of a wild and tangled forest.
+And though I have found leopards and lions in the path; though I have
+made abundant acquaintance with the hungry wolf, that "with privy paw
+devours apace and nothing said," as another great poet says of the
+ravening beast; and though no friendly spectre has even yet offered
+his guidance, I was, and am, minded to go straight on, until I either
+come out on the other side of the wood, or find there is no other
+side to it, at least, none attainable by me.
+
+This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place
+among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists,
+long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical
+Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was
+represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of
+my colleagues were _-ists_ of one sort or another; and, however kind
+and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to
+cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings
+which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap
+in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally
+elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived
+to be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as
+suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who
+professed to know so much about the very things of which I was
+ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our
+Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my
+great satisfaction, the term took; and when the _Spectator_ had stood
+godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people,
+that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened was, of course,
+completely lulled.
+
+That is the history of the origin of the terms "agnostic" and
+"agnosticism"; and it will be observed that it does not quite agree
+with the confident assertion of the reverend Principal of King's
+College, that "the adoption of the term agnostic is only an attempt to
+shift the issue, and that it involves a mere evasion" in relation to
+the Church and Christianity.[62]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The last objection (I rejoice as much as my readers must do, that it
+is the last) which I have to take to Dr. Wace's deliverance before the
+Church Congress arises, I am sorry to say, on a question of morality.
+
+"It is, and it ought to be," authoritatively declares this official
+representative of Christian ethics, "an unpleasant thing for a man to
+have to say plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ" (_l.c._
+p. 254).
+
+Whether it is so depends, I imagine, a good deal on whether the man
+was brought up in a Christian household or not. I do not see why it
+should be "unpleasant" for a Mahommedan or Buddhist to say so. But
+that "it ought to be" unpleasant for any man to say anything which he
+sincerely, and after due deliberation, believes, is, to my mind, a
+proposition of the most profoundly immoral character. I verily believe
+that the great good which has been effected in the world by
+Christianity has been largely counteracted by the pestilent doctrine
+on which all the Churches have insisted, that honest disbelief in
+their more or less astonishing creeds is a moral offence, indeed a sin
+of the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future
+retribution as murder and robbery. If we could only see, in one view,
+the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the
+violations of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from
+this source along the course of the history of Christian nations, our
+worst imaginations of Hell would pale beside the vision.
+
+A thousand times, no! It ought _not_ to be unpleasant to say that
+which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is
+painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind
+in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed,
+without erecting a sad concomitant of human weakness into something to
+be admired and cherished. The bravest of soldiers often, and very
+naturally, "feel it unpleasant" to go into action; but a court-martial
+which did its duty would make short work of the officer who
+promulgated the doctrine that his men _ought_ to feel their duty
+unpleasant.
+
+I am very well aware, as I suppose most thoughtful people are in these
+times, that the process of breaking away from old beliefs is extremely
+unpleasant; and I am much disposed to think that the encouragement,
+the consolation, and the peace afforded to earnest believers in even
+the worst forms of Christianity are of great practical advantage to
+them. What deductions must be made from this gain on the score of the
+harm done to the citizen by the ascetic other-worldliness of logical
+Christianity; to the ruler, by the hatred, malice, and all
+uncharitableness of sectarian bigotry; to the legislator, by the
+spirit of exclusiveness and domination of those that count themselves
+pillars of orthodoxy; to the philosopher, by the restraints on the
+freedom of learning and teaching which every Church exercises, when it
+is strong enough; to the conscientious soul, by the introspective
+hunting after sins of the mint and cummin type, the fear of
+theological error, and the overpowering terror of possible damnation,
+which have accompanied the Churches like their shadow, I need not now
+consider; but they are assuredly not small. If agnostics lose heavily
+on the one side, they gain a good deal on the other. People who talk
+about the comforts of belief appear to forget its discomforts; they
+ignore the fact that the Christianity of the Churches is something
+more than faith in the ideal personality of Jesus, which they create
+for themselves, _plus_ so much as can be carried into practice,
+without disorganising civil society, of the maxims of the Sermon on
+the Mount. Trip in morals or in doctrine (especially in doctrine),
+without due repentance or retractation, or fail to get properly
+baptized before you die, and a _plebiscite_ of the Christians of
+Europe, if they were true to their creeds, would affirm your
+everlasting damnation by an immense majority.
+
+Preachers, orthodox and heterodox, din into our ears that the world
+cannot get on without faith of some sort. There is a sense in which
+that is as eminently as obviously true; there is another, in which, in
+my judgment, it is as eminently as obviously false, and it seems to me
+that the hortatory, or pulpit, mind is apt to oscillate between the
+false and the true meanings, without being aware of the fact.
+
+It is quite true that the ground of every one of our actions, and the
+validity of all our reasonings, rest upon the great act of faith,
+which leads us to take the experience of the past as a safe guide in
+our dealings with the present and the future. From the nature of
+ratiocination, it is obvious that the axioms, on which it is based,
+cannot be demonstrated by ratiocination. It is also a trite
+observation that, in the business of life, we constantly take the most
+serious action upon evidence of an utterly insufficient character. But
+it is surely plain that faith is not necessarily entitled to dispense
+with ratiocination because ratiocination cannot dispense with faith as
+a starting-point; and that because we are often obliged, by the
+pressure of events, to act on very bad evidence, it does not follow
+that it is proper to act on such evidence when the pressure is absent.
+
+The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us that "faith is the
+assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen." In the
+authorised version, "substance" stands for "assurance," and "evidence"
+for "proving." The question of the exact meaning of the two words,
+[Greek: hypostasis] and [Greek: elegchos] affords a fine field of
+discussion for the scholar and the metaphysician. But I fancy we shall
+be not far from the mark if we take the writer to have had in his mind
+the profound psychological truth, that men constantly feel certain
+about things for which they strongly hope, but have no evidence, in
+the legal or logical sense of the word; and he calls this feeling
+"faith." I may have the most absolute faith that a friend has not
+committed the crime of which he is accused. In the early days of
+English history, if my friend could have obtained a few more
+compurgators of a like robust faith, he would have been acquitted. At
+the present day, if I tendered myself as a witness on that score, the
+judge would tell me to stand down, and the youngest barrister would
+smile at my simplicity. Miserable indeed is the man who has not such
+faith in some of his fellow-men--only less miserable than the man who
+allows himself to forget that such faith is not, strictly speaking,
+evidence; and when his faith is disappointed, as will happen now and
+again, turns Timon and blames the universe for his own blunders. And
+so, if a man can find a friend, the hypostasis of all his hopes, the
+mirror of his ethical ideal, in the Jesus of any, or all, of the
+Gospels, let him live by faith in that ideal. Who shall or can forbid
+him? But let him not delude himself with the notion that his faith is
+evidence of the objective reality of that in which he trusts. Such
+evidence is to be obtained only by the use of the methods of science,
+as applied to history and to literature, and it amounts at present to
+very little.
+
+It appears that Mr. Gladstone some time ago asked Mr. Laing if he
+could draw up a short summary of the negative creed; a body of
+negative propositions, which have so far been adopted on the negative
+side as to be what the Apostles' and other accepted creeds are on the
+positive; and Mr. Laing at once kindly obliged Mr. Gladstone with the
+desired articles--eight of them.
+
+If any one had preferred this request to me, I should have replied
+that, if he referred to agnostics, they have no creed; and, by the
+nature of the case, cannot have any. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a
+creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous
+application of a single principle. That principle is of great
+antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said,
+"Try all things, hold fast by that which is good;" it is the
+foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that
+every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in
+him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental
+axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In
+matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take
+you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In
+matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain
+which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the
+agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not
+be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may
+have in store for him.
+
+The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary
+according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the
+general condition of science. That which is unproven to-day may be
+proven by the help of new discoveries to-morrow. The only negative
+fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable
+limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to
+have the mind always open to conviction. Agnostics who never fail in
+carrying out their principles are, I am afraid, as rare as other
+people of whom the same consistency can be truthfully predicated. But,
+if you were to meet with such a phoenix and to tell him that you had
+discovered that two and two make five, he would patiently ask you to
+state your reasons for that conviction, and express his readiness to
+agree with you if he found them satisfactory. The apostolic
+injunction to "suffer fools gladly" should be the rule of life of a
+true agnostic. I am deeply conscious how far I myself fall short of
+this ideal, but it is my personal conception of what agnostics ought
+to be.
+
+However, as I began by stating, I speak only for myself; and I do not
+dream of anathematizing and excommunicating Mr. Laing. But, when I
+consider his creed and compare it with the Athanasian, I think I have
+on the whole a clearer conception of the meaning of the latter.
+"Polarity," in Article VIII, for example, is a word about which I
+heard a good deal in my youth, when "Naturphilosophie" was in fashion,
+and greatly did I suffer from it. For many years past, whenever I have
+met with "polarity" anywhere but in a discussion of some purely
+physical topic, such as magnetism, I have shut the book. Mr. Laing
+must excuse me if the force of habit was too much for me when I read
+his eighth article.
+
+And now, what is to be said to Mr. Harrison's remarkable deliverance
+"On the future of agnosticism "?[63] I would that it were not my
+business to say anything, for I am afraid I can say nothing which
+shall manifest my great personal respect for this able writer, and for
+the zeal and energy with which he ever and anon galvanises the weakly
+frame of Positivism until it looks, more than ever, like John Bunyan's
+Pope and Pagan rolled into one. There is a story often repeated, and I
+am afraid none the less mythical on that account, of a valiant and
+loud-voiced corporal in command of two full privates who, falling in
+with a regiment of the enemy in the dark, orders it to surrender under
+pain of instant annihilation by his force; and the enemy surrenders
+accordingly. I am always reminded of this tale when I read the
+positivist commands to the forces of Christianity and of Science; only
+the enemy show no more signs of intending to obey now than they have
+done any time these forty years.
+
+The allocution under consideration has a certain papal flavour. Mr.
+Harrison speaks with authority and not as one of the common scribes of
+the period. He knows not only what agnosticism is and how it has come
+about, but what will become of it. The agnostic is to content himself
+with being the precursor of the positivist. In his place, as a sort of
+navvy levelling the ground and cleansing it of such poor stuff as
+Christianity, he is a useful creature who deserves patting on the
+back, on condition that he does not venture beyond his last. But let
+not these scientific Sanballats presume that they are good enough to
+take part in the building of the Temple--they are mere Samaritans,
+doomed to die out in proportion as the Religion of Humanity is
+accepted by mankind. Well, if that is their fate, they have time to be
+cheerful. But let us hear Mr. Harrison's pronouncement of their doom.
+
+"Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion, an entirely
+negative stage, the point reached by physicists, a purely mental
+conclusion, with no relation to things social at all" (p. 154). I am
+quite dazed by this declaration. Are there, then, any "conclusions"
+that are not "purely mental"? Is there "no relation to things social"
+in "mental conclusions" which affect men's whole conception of life?
+Was that prince of agnostics, David Hume, particularly imbued with
+physical science? Supposing physical science to be non-existent, would
+not the agnostic principle, applied by the philologist and the
+historian, lead to exactly the same results? Is the modern more or
+less complete suspension of judgment as to the facts of the history of
+regal Rome, or the real origin of the Homeric poems, anything but
+agnosticism in history and in literature? And if so, how can
+agnosticism be the "mere negation of the physicist"?
+
+"Agnosticism is a stage in the evolution of religion." No two people
+agree as to what is meant by the term "religion"; but if it means, as
+I think it ought to mean, simply the reverence and love for the
+ethical ideal, and the desire to realise that ideal in life, which
+every man ought to feel--then I say agnosticism has no more to do
+with it than it has to do with music or painting. If, on the other
+hand, Mr. Harrison, like most people, means by "religion" theology,
+then, in my judgment, agnosticism can be said to be a stage in its
+evolution, only as death may be said to be the final stage in the
+evolution of life.
+
+     When agnostic logic is simply one of the canons of thought,
+     agnosticism, as a distinctive faith, will have spontaneously
+     disappeared (p. 155).
+
+I can but marvel that such sentences as this, and those already
+quoted, should have proceeded from Mr. Harrison's pen. Does he really
+mean to suggest that agnostics have a logic peculiar to themselves?
+Will lie kindly help me out of my bewilderment when I try to think of
+"logic" being anything else than the canon (which, I believe, means
+rule) of thought? As to agnosticism being a distinctive faith, I have
+already shown that it cannot possibly be anything of the kind, unless
+perfect faith in logic is distinctive of agnostics; which, after all,
+it may be.
+
+     Agnosticism as a religious philosophy _per se_ rests on an
+     almost total ignoring of history and social evolution (p.
+     152).
+
+But neither _per se_ nor _per aliud_ has agnosticism (if I know
+anything about it) the least pretension to be a religious philosophy;
+so far from resting on ignorance of history, and that social evolution
+of which history is the account, it is and has been the inevitable
+result of the strict adherence to scientific methods by historical
+investigators. Our forefathers were quite confident about the
+existence of Romulus and Remus, of King Arthur, and of Hengist and
+Horsa. Most of us have become agnostics in regard to the reality of
+these worthies. It is a matter of notoriety of which Mr. Harrison, who
+accuses us all so freely of ignoring history, should not be ignorant,
+that the critical process which has shattered the foundations of
+orthodox Christian doctrine owes its origin, not to the devotees of
+physical science, but, before all, to Richard Simon, the learned
+French Oratorian, just two hundred years ago. I cannot find evidence
+that either Simon, or any one of the great scholars and critics of the
+eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who have continued Simon's work,
+had any particular acquaintance with physical science. I have already
+pointed out that Hume was independent of it. And certainly one of the
+most potent influences in the same direction, upon history in the
+present century, that of Grote, did not come from the physical side.
+Physical science, in fact, has had nothing directly to do with the
+criticism of the Gospels; it is wholly incompetent to furnish
+demonstrative evidence that any statement made in these histories is
+untrue. Indeed, modern physiology can find parallels in nature for
+events of apparently the most eminently supernatural kind recounted
+in some of those histories.
+
+It is a comfort to hear, upon Mr. Harrison's authority, that the laws
+of physical nature show no signs of becoming "less definite, less
+consistent, or less popular as time goes on" (p. 154). How a law of
+nature is to become indefinite, or "inconsistent," passes my poor
+powers of imagination. But with universal suffrage and the coach-dog
+theory of premiership in full view; the theory, I mean, that the whole
+duty of a political chief is to look sharp for the way the social
+coach is driving, and then run in front and bark loud--as if being the
+leading noise-maker and guiding were the same things--it is truly
+satisfactory to me to know that the laws of nature are increasing in
+popularity. Looking at recent developments of the policy which is said
+to express the great heart of the people, I have had my doubts of the
+fact; and my love for my fellow-countrymen has led me to reflect, with
+dread, on what will happen to them, if any of the laws of nature ever
+become so unpopular in their eyes, as to be voted down by the
+transcendent authority of universal suffrage. If the legion of demons,
+before they set out on their journey in the swine, had had time to
+hold a meeting and to resolve unanimously "That the law of gravitation
+is oppressive and ought to be repealed," I am afraid it would have
+made no sort of difference to the result, when their two thousand
+unwilling porters were once launched down the steep slopes of the
+fatal shore of Gennesaret.
+
+     The question of the place of religion as an element of human
+     nature, as a force of human society, its origin, analysis,
+     and functions, has never been considered at all from an
+     agnostic point of view (p. 152).
+
+I doubt not that Mr. Harrison knows vastly more about history than I
+do; in fact, he tells the public that some of my friends and I have
+had no opportunity of occupying ourselves with that subject. I do not
+like to contradict any statement which Mr. Harrison makes on his own
+authority; only, if I may be true to my agnostic principles, I humbly
+ask how he has obtained assurance on this head. I do not profess to
+know anything about the range of Mr. Harrison's studies; but as he has
+thought it fitting to start the subject, I may venture to point out
+that, on evidence adduced, it might be equally permissible to draw the
+conclusion that Mr. Harrison's other labours have not allowed him to
+acquire that acquaintance with the methods and results of physical
+science, or with the history of philosophy, or of philological and
+historical criticism, which is essential to any one who desires to
+obtain a right understanding of agnosticism. Incompetence in
+philosophy, and in all branches of science except mathematics, is the
+well-known mental characteristic of the founder of positivism.
+Faithfulness in disciples is an admirable quality in itself; the pity
+is that it not unfrequently leads to the imitation of the weaknesses
+as well as of the strength of the master. It is only such
+over-faithfulness which can account for a "strong mind really
+saturated with the historical sense" (p. 153) exhibiting the
+extraordinary forgetfulness of the historical fact of the existence of
+David Hume implied by the assertion that
+
+     it would be difficult to name a single known agnostic who
+     has given to history anything like the amount of thought and
+     study which he brings to a knowledge of the physical world
+     (p. 153).
+
+Whoso calls to mind what I may venture to term the bright side of
+Christianity--that ideal of manhood, with its strength and its
+patience, its justice and its pity for human frailty, its helpfulness
+to the extremity of self-sacrifice, its ethical purity and nobility,
+which apostles have pictured, in which armies of martyrs have placed
+their unshakable faith, and whence obscure men and women, like
+Catherine of Sienna and John Knox, have derived the courage to rebuke
+popes and kings--is not likely to underrate the importance of the
+Christian faith as a factor in human history, or to doubt that if that
+faith should prove to be incompatible with our knowledge, or necessary
+want of knowledge, some other hypostasis of men's hopes, genuine
+enough and worthy enough to replace it, will arise. But that the
+incongruous mixture of bad science with eviscerated papistry, out of
+which Comte manufactured the positivist religion, will be the heir of
+the Christian ages, I have too much respect for the humanity of the
+future to believe. Charles the Second told his brother, "They will not
+kill me, James, to make you king." And if critical science is
+remorselessly destroying the historical foundations of the noblest
+ideal of humanity which mankind have yet worshipped, it is little
+likely to permit the pitiful reality to climb into the vacant shrine.
+
+That a man should determine to devote himself to the service of
+humanity--including intellectual and moral self-culture under that
+name; that this should be, in the proper sense of the word, his
+religion--is not only an intelligible, but, I think, a laudable
+resolution. And I am greatly disposed to believe that it is the only
+religion which will prove itself to be unassailably acceptable so long
+as the human race endures. But when the Comtist asks me to worship
+"Humanity"--that is to say, to adore the generalised conception of men
+as they ever have been and probably ever will be--I must reply that I
+could just as soon bow down and worship the generalised conception of
+a "wilderness of apes." Surely we are not going back to the days of
+Paganism, when individual men were deified, and the hard good sense of
+a dying Vepasian could prompt the bitter jest, "Ut puto Deus fio." No
+divinity doth hedge a modern man, be he even a sovereign ruler. Nor is
+there any one, except a municipal magistrate, who is officially
+declared worshipful. But if there is no spark of worship-worthy
+divinity in the individual twigs of humanity, whence comes that
+godlike splendour which the Moses of Positivism fondly imagines to
+pervade the whole bush?
+
+I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the
+evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history.
+Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of
+his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent
+than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not
+lead him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his
+mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life
+with barren toil and battle. He attains a certain degree of physical
+comfort, and develops a more or less workable theory of life, in such
+favourable situations as the plains of Mesopotamia or of Egypt, and
+then, for thousands and thousands of years, struggles, with varying
+fortunes, attended by infinite wickedness, bloodshed, and misery, to
+maintain himself at this point against the greed and the ambition of
+his fellow-men. He makes a point of killing and otherwise persecuting
+all those who first try to get him to move on; and when he has moved
+on a step, foolishly confers post-mortem deification on his victims.
+He exactly repeats the process with all who want to move a step yet
+farther. And the best men of the best epochs are simply those who make
+the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.
+
+That one should rejoice in the good man, forgive the bad man, and pity
+and help all men to the best of one's ability, is surely indisputable.
+It is the glory of Judaism and of Christianity to have proclaimed this
+truth, through all their aberrations. But the worship of a God who
+needs forgiveness and help, and deserves pity every hour of his
+existence, is no better than that of any other voluntarily selected
+fetish. The Emperor Julian's project was hopeful in comparison with
+the prospects of the Comtist Anthropolatry.
+
+When the historian of religion in the twentieth century is writing
+about the nineteenth, I foresee he will say something of this kind:
+
+The most curious and instructive events in the religious history of
+the preceding century are the rise and progress of two new sects
+called Mormons and Positivists. To the student who has carefully
+considered these remarkable phenomena nothing in the records of
+religious self-delusion can appear improbable.
+
+The Mormons arose in the midst of the great Republic, which, though
+comparatively insignificant, at that time, in territory as in the
+number of its citizens, was (as we know from the fragments of the
+speeches of its orators which have come down to us) no less remarkable
+for the native intelligence of its population than for the wide extent
+of their information, owing to the activity of their publishers in
+diffusing all that they could invent, beg, borrow, or steal. Nor were
+they less noted for their perfect freedom from all restraints in
+thought, or speech, or deed; except, to be sure, the beneficent and
+wise influence of the majority, exerted, in case of need, through an
+institution known as "tarring and feathering," the exact nature of
+which is now disputed.
+
+There is a complete consensus of testimony that the founder of
+Mormonism, one Joseph Smith, was a low-minded, ignorant scamp, and
+that he stole the "Scriptures" which he propounded; not being clever
+enough to forge even such contemptible stuff as they contain.
+Nevertheless he must have been a man of some force of character, for a
+considerable number of disciples soon gathered about him. In spite of
+repeated outbursts of popular hatred and violence--during one of which
+persecutions Smith was brutally murdered--the Mormon body steadily
+increased, and became a flourishing community. But the Mormon
+practices being objectionable to the majority, they were, more than
+once, without any pretence of law, but by force of riot, arson, and
+murder, driven away from the land they had occupied. Harried by these
+persecutions, the Mormon body eventually committed itself to the
+tender mercies of a desert as barren as that of Sinai; and after
+terrible sufferings and privations, reached the Oasis of Utah. Here it
+grew and flourished, sending out missionaries to, and receiving
+converts from, all parts of Europe, sometimes to the number of 10,000
+in a year; until, in 1880, the rich and flourishing community numbered
+110,000 souls in Utah alone, while there were probably 30,000 or
+40,000 scattered abroad elsewhere. In the whole history of religions
+there is no more remarkable example of the power of faith; and, in
+this case, the founder of that faith was indubitably a most despicable
+creature. It is interesting to observe that the course taken by the
+great Republic and its citizens runs exactly parallel with that taken
+by the Roman Empire and its citizens towards the early Christians,
+except that the Romans had a certain legal excuse for their acts of
+violence, inasmuch as the Christian "sodalitia" were not licensed, and
+consequently were, _ipso facto_, illegal assemblages. Until, in the
+latter part of the nineteenth century, the United States legislature
+decreed the illegality of polygamy, the Mormons were wholly within the
+law.
+
+Nothing can present a greater contrast to all this than the history of
+the Postivists. This sect arose much about the same time as that of
+the Mormons, in the upper and most instructed stratum of the
+quick-witted, sceptical population of Paris. The founder, Auguste
+Comte, was a teacher of mathematics, but of no eminence in that
+department of knowledge, and with nothing but an amateur's
+acquaintance with physical, chemical, and biological science. His
+works are repulsive, on account of the dull diffuseness of their
+style, and a certain air, as of a superior person, which characterises
+them; but nevertheless they contain good things here and there. It
+would take too much space to reproduce in detail a system which
+proposes to regulate all human life by the promulgation of a Gentile
+Leviticus. Suffice it to say, that M. Comte may be described as a
+syncretic, who, like the Gnostics of early Church history, attempted
+to combine the substance of imperfectly comprehended contemporary
+science with the form of Roman Christianity. It may be that this is
+the reason why his disciples were so very angry with some obscure
+people called Agnostics, whose views, if we may judge by the account
+left in the works of a great Positivist controversial writer, were
+very absurd.
+
+To put the matter briefly, M. Comte, finding Christianity and Science
+at daggers drawn, seems to have said to Science, "You find
+Christianity rotten at the core, do you? Well, I will scoop out the
+inside of it." And to Romanism: "You find Science mere dry light--cold
+and bare. Well, I will put your shell over it, and so, as schoolboys
+make a spectre out of a turnip and a tallow candle, behold the new
+religion of Humanity complete!"
+
+Unfortunately neither the Romanists, nor the people who were something
+more than amateurs in science, could be got to worship M. Comte's new
+idol properly. In the native country of Positivism, one distinguished
+man of letters and one of science, for a time, helped to make up a
+roomful of the faithful, but their love soon grew cold. In England, on
+the other hand, there appears to be little doubt that, in the ninth
+decade of the century, the multitude of disciples reached the grand
+total of several score. They had the advantage of the advocacy of one
+or two most eloquent and learned apostles, and, at any rate, the
+sympathy of several persons of light and leading; and, if they were
+not seen, they were heard, all over the world. On the other hand, as a
+sect, they laboured under the prodigious disadvantage of being
+refined, estimable people, living in the midst of the worn-out
+civilisation of the old world; where any one who had tried to
+persecute them, as the Mormons were persecuted, would have been
+instantly hanged. But the majority never dreamed of persecuting them;
+on the contrary, they were rather given to scold and otherwise try the
+patience of the majority.
+
+The history of these sects in the closing years of the century is
+highly instructive. Mormonism ...
+
+But I find I have suddenly slipped off Mr. Harrison's tripod, which I
+had borrowed for the occasion. The fact is, I am not equal to the
+prophetical business, and ought not to have undertaken it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[It did not occur to me, while writing the latter part of this essay,
+that it could be needful to disclaim the intention of putting the
+religious system of Comte on a level with Mormonism. And I was unaware
+of the fact that Mr. Harrison rejects the greater part of the
+Positivist Religion, as taught by Comte. I have, therefore, erased one
+or two passages, which implied his adherence to the "Religion of
+Humanity" as developed by Comte, 1893.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [51] See the _Official Report of the Church Congress held
+          at Manchester_, October 1888, pp. 253, 254.
+
+     [52] In this place and in the eleventh essay, there are
+          references to the late Archbishop of York which are of
+          no importance to my main argument, and which I have
+          expunged because I desire to obliterate the traces of a
+          temporary misunderstanding with a man of rare ability,
+          candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking
+          and no less respect. I rejoice to think now of the
+          (then) Bishop's cordial hail the first time we met
+          after our little skirmish, "Well, is it to be peace or
+          war?" I replied, "A little of both." But there was only
+          peace when we parted, and ever after.
+
+     [53] Dr. Wace tells us, "It may be asked how far we can rely
+          on the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on
+          these subjects." And he seems to think the question
+          appropriately answered by the assertion that it "ought
+          to be regarded as settled by M. Renan's practical
+          surrender of the adverse case." I thought I knew M.
+          Renan's works pretty well, but I have contrived to miss
+          this "practical" (I wish Dr. Wace had defined the scope
+          of that useful adjective) surrender. However, as Dr.
+          Wace can find no difficulty in pointing out the passage
+          of M. Renan's writings, by which he feels justified in
+          making his statement, I shall wait for further
+          enlightenment, contenting myself, for the present, with
+          remarking that if M. Renan were to retract and do
+          penance in Notre-Dame to-morrow for any contributions
+          to Biblical criticism that may be specially his
+          property, the main results of that criticism, as they
+          are set forth in the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and
+          Volkmar, for example, would not be sensibly affected.
+
+     [54] See De Gobineau, _Les Religions et les Philosophies
+          dans l'Asie Centrale_; and the recently published work
+          of Mr. E.G. Browne, _The Episode of the Bab_.
+
+     [55] Here, as always, the revised version is cited.
+
+     [56] Does any one really mean to say that there is any
+          internal or external criterion by which the reader of a
+          biblical statement, in which scientific matter is
+          contained, is enabled to judge whether it is to betaken
+          _au serieux_ or not? Is the account of the Deluge,
+          accepted as true in the New Testament, less precise and
+          specific than that of the call of Abraham, also
+          accepted as true therein? By what mark does the story
+          of the feeding with manna in the wilderness, which
+          involves some very curious scientific problems, show
+          that it is meant merely for edification, while the
+          story of the inscription of the Law on stone by the
+          hand of Jahveh is literally true? If the story of the
+          Fall is not the true record of an historical
+          occurrence, what becomes of Pauline theology? Yet the
+          story of the Fall as directly conflicts with
+          probability, and is as devoid of trustworthy evidence,
+          as that of the creation or that of the Deluge, with
+          which it forms an harmoniously legendary series.
+
+     [57] See, for an admirable discussion of the whole subject,
+          Dr. Abbott's article on the Gospels in the
+          _Encyclopaedia Britannica_; and the remarkable monograph
+          by Professor Volkmar, _Jesus Nazarenus und die erste
+          christliche Zeit_ (1882). Whether we agree with the
+          conclusions of these writers or not, the method of
+          critical investigation which, they adopt is
+          unimpeachable.
+
+     [58] Notwithstanding the hard words shot at me from behind
+          the hedge of anonymity by a writer in a recent number
+          of the _Quarterly Review_, I repeat, without the
+          slightest fear of refutation, that the four Gospels, as
+          they have come to us, are the work of unknown writers.
+
+     [59] Their arguments, in the long run, are always reducible
+          to one form. Otherwise trustworthy witnesses affirm
+          that such and such events took place. These events are
+          inexplicable, except the agency of "spirits" is
+          admitted. Therefore "spirits" were the cause of the
+          phenomena.
+
+          And the heads of the reply are always the same.
+          Remember Goethe's aphorism: "Alles factische ist schon
+          Theorie." Trustworthy witnesses are constantly
+          deceived, or deceive themselves, in their
+          interpretation of sensible phenomena. No one can prove
+          that the sensible phenomena, in these cases, could be
+          caused only by the agency of spirits: and there is
+          abundant ground for believing that they may be produced
+          in other ways. Therefore, the utmost that can be
+          reasonably asked for, on the evidence as it stands, is
+          suspension of judgment. And, on the necessity for even
+          that suspension, reasonable men may differ, according
+          to their views of probability.
+
+     [60] Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the
+          matter, for, many years afterwards, when Dean Mansel's
+          Bampton Lectures were published, it seemed to me I
+          already knew all that this eminently agnostic thinker
+          had to tell me.
+
+     [61] _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_. Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256.
+
+     [62] _Report of the Church Congress_, Manchester, 1888, p. 252.
+
+     [63] _Fortnightly Review_, Jan. 1889.
+
+
+
+
+VIII: AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER
+
+[1889]
+
+
+Those who passed from Dr. Wace's article in the last number of the
+"Nineteenth Century" to the anticipatory confutation of it which
+followed in "The New Reformation," must have enjoyed the pleasure of a
+dramatic surprise--just as when the fifth act of a new play proves
+unexpectedly bright and interesting. Mrs. Ward will, I hope, pardon
+the comparison, if I say that her effective clearing away of
+antiquated incumbrances from the lists of the controversy, reminds me
+of nothing so much as of the action of some neat-handed, but
+strong-wristed, Phyllis, who, gracefully wielding her long-handled
+"Turk's head," sweeps away the accumulated results of the toil of
+generations of spiders. I am the more indebted to this luminous sketch
+of the results of critical investigation, as it is carried out among
+these theologians who are men of science and not mere counsel for
+creeds, since it has relieved me from the necessity of dealing with
+the greater part of Dr. Wace's polemic, and enables me to devote more
+space to the really important issues which have been raised.[64]
+
+Perhaps, however, it may be well for me to observe that approbation of
+the manner in which a great biblical scholar, for instance, Reuss,
+does his work does not commit me to the adoption of all, or indeed any
+of his views; and, further, that the disagreements of a series of
+investigators do not in any way interfere with the fact that each of
+them has made important contributions to the body of truth ultimately
+established. If I cite Buffon, Linnaeus, Lamarck, and Cuvier, as having
+each and all taken a leading share in building up modern biology, the
+statement that every one of these great naturalists disagreed with,
+and even more or less contradicted, all the rest is quite true; but
+the supposition that the latter assertion is in any way inconsistent
+with the former, would betray a strange ignorance of the manner in
+which all true science advances.
+
+Dr. Wace takes a great deal of trouble to make it appear that I have
+desired to evade the real questions raised by his attack upon me at
+the Church Congress. I assure the reverend Principal that in this, as
+in some other respects, he has entertained a very erroneous conception
+of my intentions. Things would assume more accurate proportions in Dr.
+Wace's mind, if he would kindly remember that it is just thirty years
+since ecclesiastical thunderbolts began to fly about my ears. I have
+had the "Lion and the Bear" to deal with, and it is long since I got
+quite used to the threatenings of episcopal Goliaths, whose croziers
+were like unto a weaver's beam. So that I almost think I might not
+have noticed Dr. Wace's attack, personal as it was; and although, as
+he is good enough to tell us, separate copies are to be had for the
+modest equivalent of twopence, as a matter of fact, it did not come
+under my notice for a long time after it was made. May I further
+venture to point out that (reckoning postage) the expenditure of
+twopence-halfpenny, or, at the most, threepence, would have enabled
+Dr. Wace so far to comply with ordinary conventions as to direct my
+attention to the fact that he had attacked me before a meeting at
+which I was not present? I really am not responsible for the five
+months' neglect of which Dr. Wace complains. Singularly enough, the
+Englishry who swarmed about the Engadine, during the three months that
+I was being brought back to life by the glorious air and perfect
+comfort of the Maloja, did not, in my hearing, say anything about the
+important events which had taken place at the Church Congress; and I
+think I can venture to affirm that there was not a single copy of Dr.
+Wace's pamphlet in any of the hotel libraries which I rummaged, in
+search of something more edifying than dull English or questionable
+French novels.
+
+And now, having, as I hope, set myself right with the public as
+regards the sins of commission and omission with which I have been
+charged, I feel free to deal with matters to which time and type may
+be more profitably devoted.
+
+I believe that there is not a solitary argument I have used, or that I
+am about to use, which is original, or has anything to do with the
+fact that I have been chiefly occupied with natural science. They are
+all, facts and reasoning alike, either identical with, or
+consequential upon, propositions which are to be found in the works of
+scholars and theologians of the highest repute in the only two
+countries, Holland and Germany,[65] in which, at the present time,
+professors of theology are to be found, whose tenure of their posts
+does not depend upon the results to which their inquiries lead
+them.[66] It is true that, to the best of my ability, I have satisfied
+myself of the soundness of the foundations on which my arguments are
+built, and I desire to be held fully responsible for everything I say.
+But, nevertheless, my position is really no more than that of an
+expositor; and my justification for undertaking it is simply that
+conviction of the supremacy of private judgment (indeed, of the
+impossibility of escaping it) which is the foundation of the
+Protestant Reformation, and which was the doctrine accepted by the
+vast majority of the Anglicans of my youth, before that backsliding
+towards the "beggarly rudiments" of an effete and idolatrous
+sacerdotalism which has, even now, provided us with the saddest
+spectacle which has been offered to the eyes of Englishmen in this
+generation. A high court of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, with a host
+of great lawyers in battle array, is and, for Heaven knows how long,
+will be, occupied with these very questions of "washing of cups and
+pots and brazen vessels," which the Master, whose professed
+representatives are rending the Church over these squabbles, had in
+his mind when, as we are told, he uttered the scathing rebuke:--
+
+    Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
+        This people honoureth me with their lips,
+        But their heart is far from me.
+        But in vain do they worship me,
+        Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.
+                                          (Mark vii. 6-7.)
+
+Men who can be absorbed in bickerings over miserable disputes of this
+kind can have but little sympathy with the old evangelical doctrine of
+the "open Bible," or anything but a grave misgiving of the results of
+diligent reading of the Bible, without the help of ecclesiastical
+spectacles, by the mass of the people. Greatly to the surprise of many
+of my friends, I have always advocated the reading of the Bible, and
+the diffusion of the study of that most remarkable collection of books
+among the people. Its teachings are so infinitely superior to those of
+the sects, who are just as busy now as the Pharisees were eighteen
+hundred years ago, in smothering them under "the precepts of men"; it
+is so certain, to my mind, that the Bible contains within itself the
+refutation of nine-tenths of the mixture of sophistical metaphysics
+and old-world superstition which has been piled round it by the
+so-called Christians of later times; it is so clear that the only
+immediate and ready antidote to the poison which has been mixed with
+Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of mankind, lies in
+copious draughts from the undefiled spring, that I exercise the right
+and duty of free judgment on the part of every man, mainly for the
+purpose of inducing other laymen to follow my example. If the New
+Testament is translated into Zulu by Protestant missionaries, it must
+be assumed that a Zulu convert is competent to draw from its contents
+all the truths which it is necessary for him to believe. I trust that
+I may, without immodesty, claim to be put on the same footing as a
+Zulu.
+
+The most constant reproach which is launched against persons of my way
+of thinking is that it is all very well for us to talk about the
+deductions of scientific thought, but what are the poor and the
+uneducated to do? Has it ever occurred to those who talk in this
+fashion, that their creeds and the articles of their several
+confessions, their determination of the exact nature and extent of the
+teachings of Jesus, their expositions of the real meaning of that
+which is written in the Epistles (to leave aside all questions
+concerning the Old Testament), are nothing more than deductions which,
+at any rate, profess to be the result of strictly scientific thinking,
+and which are not worth attending to unless they really possess that
+character? If it is not historically true that such and such things
+happened in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of
+Christianity? And what is historical truth but that of which the
+evidence bears strict scientific investigation? I do not call to mind
+any problem of natural science which has come under my notice which is
+more difficult, or more curiously interesting as a mere problem, than
+that of the origin of the Synoptic Gospels and that of the historical
+value of the narratives which they contain. The Christianity of the
+Churches stands or falls by the results of the purely scientific
+investigation of these questions. They were first taken up, in a
+purely scientific spirit, about a century ago; they have been studied
+over and over again by men of vast knowledge and critical acumen; but
+he would be a rash man who should assert that any solution of these
+problems, as yet formulated, is exhaustive. The most that can be said
+is that certain prevalent solutions are certainly false, while others
+are more or less probably true.
+
+If I am doing my best to rouse my countrymen out of their dogmatic
+slumbers, it is not that they may be amused by seeing who gets the
+best of it in a contest between a "scientist" and a theologian. The
+serious question is whether theological men of science, or theological
+special pleaders, are to have the confidence of the general public; it
+is the question whether a country in which it is possible for a body
+of excellent clerical and lay gentlemen to discuss, in public meeting
+assembled, how much it is desirable to let the congregations of the
+faithful know of the results of biblical criticism, is likely to wake
+up with anything short of the grasp of a rough lay hand upon its
+shoulder; it is the question whether the New Testament books, being,
+as I believe they were, written and compiled by people who, according
+to their lights, were perfectly sincere, will not, when properly
+studied as ordinary historical documents, afford us the means of
+self-criticism. And it must be remembered that the New Testament books
+are not responsible for the doctrine invented by the Churches that
+they are anything but ordinary historical documents. The author of the
+third gospel tells us, as straightforwardly as a man can, that he has
+no claim to any other character than that of an ordinary compiler and
+editor, who had before him the works of many and variously qualified
+predecessors.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In my former papers, according to Dr. Wace, I have evaded giving an
+answer to his main proposition, which he states as follows--
+
+     Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one
+     practically doubts that our Lord lived, and that He died on
+     the cross, in the most intense sense of filial relation to
+     His Father in Heaven, and that He bore testimony to that
+     Father's providence, love, and grace towards mankind. The
+     Lord's Prayer affords a sufficient evidence on these points.
+     If the Sermon on the Mount alone be added, the whole unseen
+     world, of which the Agnostic refuses to know anything,
+     stands unveiled before us.... If Jesus Christ preached that
+     Sermon, made those promises, and taught that prayer, then
+     any one who says that we know nothing of God, or of a future
+     life, or of an unseen world, says that he does not believe
+     Jesus Christ (pp. 354-355).
+
+Again--
+
+     The main question at issue, in a word, is one which
+     Professor Huxley has chosen to leave entirely on one
+     side--whether, namely, allowing for the utmost uncertainty
+     on other points of the criticism to which he appeals, there
+     is any reasonable doubt that the Lord's Prayer and the
+     Sermon on the Mount afford a true account of our Lord's
+     essential belief and cardinal teaching (p. 355.)
+
+I certainly was not aware that I had evaded the questions here stated;
+indeed I should say that I have indicated my reply to them pretty
+clearly; but, as Dr. Wace wants a plainer answer, he shall certainly
+be gratified. If, as Dr. Wace declares it is, his "whole case is
+involved in" the argument as stated in the latter of these two
+extracts, so much the worse for his whole case. For I am of opinion
+that there is the gravest reason for doubting whether the "Sermon on
+the Mount" was ever preached, and whether the so-called "Lord's
+Prayer" was ever prayed, by Jesus of Nazareth. My reasons for this
+opinion are, among others, these:--There is now no doubt that the
+three Synoptic Gospels, so far from being the work of three
+independent writers, are closely interdependent,[67] and that in one
+of two ways. Either all three contain, as their foundation, versions,
+to a large extent verbally identical, of one and the same tradition;
+or two of them are thus closely dependent on the third; and the
+opinion of the majority of the best critics has of late years more and
+more converged towards the conviction that our canonical second gospel
+(the so-called "Mark's" Gospel) is that which most closely represents
+the primitive groundwork of the three.[68] That I take to be one of
+the most valuable results of New Testament criticism, of immeasurably
+greater importance than the discussion about dates and authorship.
+
+But if, as I believe to be the case, beyond any rational doubt or
+dispute, the second gospel is the nearest extant representative of the
+oldest tradition, whether written or oral, how comes it that it
+contains neither the "Sermon on the Mount" nor the "Lord's Prayer,"
+those typical embodiments, according to Dr. Wace, of the "essential
+belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus? Not only does "Mark's" gospel
+fail to contain the "Sermon on the Mount," or anything but a very few
+of the sayings contained in that collection; but, at the point of the
+history of Jesus where the "Sermon" occurs in "Matthew," there is in
+"Mark" an apparently unbroken narrative from the calling of James and
+John to the healing of Simon's wife's mother. Thus the oldest
+tradition not only ignores the "Sermon on the Mount," but, by
+implication, raises a probability against its being delivered when and
+where the later "Matthew" inserts it in his compilation.
+
+And still more weighty is the fact that the third gospel, the author
+of which tells us that he wrote after "many" others had "taken in
+hand" the same enterprise; who should therefore have known the first
+gospel (if it existed), and was bound to pay to it the deference due
+to the work of an apostolic eye-witness (if he had any reason for
+thinking it was so)--this writer, who exhibits far more literary
+competence than the other two, ignores any "Sermon on the Mount," such
+as that reported by "Matthew," just as much as the oldest authority
+does. Yet "Luke" has a great many passages identical, or parallel,
+with those in "Matthew's" "Sermon on the Mount," which are, for the
+most part, scattered about in a totally different connection.
+
+Interposed, however, between the nomination of the Apostles and a
+visit to Capernaum; occupying, therefore, a place which answers to
+that of the "Sermon on the Mount," in the first gospel, there is in
+the third gospel a discourse which is as closely similar to the
+"Sermon on the Mount," in some particulars, as it is widely unlike it
+in others.
+
+This discourse is said to have been delivered in a "plain" or "level
+place" (Luke vi. 17), and by way of distinction we may call it the
+"Sermon on the Plain."
+
+I see no reason to doubt that the two Evangelists are dealing, to a
+considerable extent, with the same traditional material; and a
+comparison of the two "Sermons" suggests very strongly that "Luke's"
+version is the earlier. The correspondences between the two forbid the
+notion that they are independent. They both begin with a series of
+blessings, some of which are almost verbally identical. In the middle
+of each (Luke vi. 27-38, Matt. v. 43-48) there is a striking
+exposition of the ethical spirit of the command given in Leviticus
+xix. 18. And each ends with a passage containing the declaration that
+a tree is to be known by its fruit, and the parable of the house built
+on the sand. But while there are only 29 verses in the "Sermon on the
+Plain" there are 107 in the "Sermon on the Mount;" the excess in
+length of the latter being chiefly due to the long interpolations,
+one of 30 verses before and one of 34 verses after, the middlemost
+parallelism with Luke. Under these circumstances it is quite
+impossible to admit that there is more probability that "Matthew's"
+version of the Sermon is historically accurate, than there is that
+Luke's version is so; and they cannot both be accurate.
+
+"Luke" either knew the collection of loosely-connected and aphoristic
+utterances which appear under the name of the "Sermon on the Mount" in
+"Matthew"; or he did not. If he did not, he must have been ignorant of
+the existence of such a document as our canonical "Matthew," a fact
+which does not make for the genuineness, or the authority, of that
+book. If he did, he has shown that he does not care for its authority
+on a matter of fact of no small importance; and that does not permit
+us to conceive that he believed the first gospel to be the work of an
+authority to whom he ought to defer, let alone that of an apostolic
+eye-witness.
+
+The tradition of the Church about the second gospel, which I believe
+to be quite worthless, but which is all the evidence there is for
+"Mark's" authorship, would have us believe that "Mark" was little more
+than the mouthpiece of the apostle Peter. Consequently, we are to
+suppose that Peter either did not know, or did not care very much for,
+that account of the "essential belief and cardinal teaching" of Jesus
+which is contained in the Sermon on the Mount; and, certainly, he
+could not have shared Dr. Wace's view of its importance.[69]
+
+I thought that all fairly attentive and intelligent students of the
+gospels, to say nothing of theologians of reputation, knew these
+things. But how can any one who does know them have the conscience to
+ask whether there is "any reasonable doubt" that the Sermon on the
+Mount was preached by Jesus of Nazareth? If conjecture is permissible,
+where nothing else is possible, the most probable conjecture seems to
+be that "Matthew," having a _cento_ of sayings attributed--rightly or
+wrongly it is impossible to say--to Jesus among his materials, thought
+they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse, and put
+them in at the place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the
+highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches which never
+were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of statesmen and
+warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented by "Matthew" would
+have been grievously astonished to find that any one objected to his
+following the example of the best models accessible to him.
+
+So with the "Lord's Prayer." Absent in our representative of the
+oldest tradition, it appears in both "Matthew" and "Luke." There is
+reason to believe that every pious Jew, at the commencement of our
+era, prayed three times a day, according to a formula which is
+embodied in the present "Schmone-Esre"[70] of the Jewish prayer-book.
+Jesus, who was assuredly, in all respects, a pious Jew, whatever else
+he may have been, doubtless did the same. Whether he modified the
+current formula, or whether the so-called "Lord's Prayer" is the
+prayer substituted for the "Schmone-Esre" in the congregations of the
+Gentiles, is a question which can hardly be answered.
+
+In a subsequent passage of Dr. Wace's article (p. 356) he adds to the
+list of the verities which he imagines to be unassailable, "The Story
+of the Passion." I am not quite sure what he means by this. I am not
+aware that any one (with the exception of certain ancient heretics)
+has propounded doubts as to the reality of the crucifixion; and
+certainly I have no inclination to argue about the precise accuracy of
+every detail of that pathetic story of suffering and wrong. But, if
+Dr. Wace means, as I suppose he does, that that which, according to
+the orthodox view, happened after the crucifixion, and which is, in a
+dogmatic sense, the most important part of the story, is founded on
+solid historical proofs, I must beg leave to express a diametrically
+opposite conviction.
+
+What do we find when the accounts of the events in question, contained
+in the three Synoptic gospels, are compared together? In the oldest,
+there is a simple, straightforward statement which, for anything that
+I have to urge to the contrary, may be exactly true. In the other two,
+there is, round this possible and probable nucleus, a mass of
+accretions of the most questionable character.
+
+The cruelty of death by crucifixion depended very much upon its
+lingering character. If there were a support for the weight of the
+body, as not unfrequently was the practice, the pain during the first
+hours of the infliction was not, necessarily, extreme; nor need any
+serious physical symptoms, at once, arise from the wounds made by the
+nails in the hands and feet, supposing they were nailed, which was not
+invariably the case. When exhaustion set in, and hunger, thirst, and
+nervous irritation had done their work, the agony of the sufferer must
+have been terrible; and the more terrible that, in the absence of any
+effectual disturbance of the machinery of physical life, it might be
+prolonged for many hours, or even days. Temperate, strong men, such as
+were the ordinary Galilean peasants, might live for several days on
+the cross. It is necessary to bear these facts in mind when we read
+the account contained in the fifteenth chapter of the second gospel.
+
+Jesus was crucified at the third hour (xv. 25), and the narrative
+seems to imply that he died immediately after the ninth hour (_v_.
+34). In this case, he would have been crucified only six hours; and
+the time spent on the cross cannot have been much longer, because
+Joseph of Arimathaea must have gone to Pilate, made his preparations,
+and deposited the body in the rock-cut tomb before sunset, which, at
+that time of the year, was about the twelfth hour. That any one should
+die after only six hours' crucifixion could not have been at all in
+accordance with Pilate's large experience of the effects of that
+method of punishment. It, therefore, quite agrees with what might be
+expected, that Pilate "marvelled if he were already dead" and required
+to be satisfied on this point by the testimony of the Roman officer
+who was in command of the execution party. Those who have paid
+attention to the extraordinary difficult question, What are the
+indisputable signs of death?--will be able to estimate the value of
+the opinion of a rough soldier on such a subject; even if his report
+to the Procurator were in no wise affected by the fact that the friend
+of Jesus, who anxiously awaited his answer, was a man of influence and
+of wealth.
+
+The inanimate body, wrapped in linen, was deposited in a
+spacious,[71] cool rock chamber, the entrance of which was closed, not
+by a well-fitting door, but by a stone rolled against the opening,
+which would of course allow free passage of air. A little more than
+thirty-six hours afterwards (Friday 6 P.M., to Sunday 6 A.M., or a
+little after) three women visit the tomb and find it empty. And they
+are told by a young man "arrayed in a white robe" that Jesus is gone
+to his native country of Galilee, and that the disciples and Peter
+will find him there.
+
+Thus it stands, plainly recorded, in the oldest tradition that, for
+any evidence to the contrary, the sepulchre may have been emptied at
+any time during the Friday or Saturday nights. If it is said that no
+Jew would have violated the Sabbath by taking the former course, it is
+to be recollected that Joseph of Arimathaea might well be familiar with
+that wise and liberal interpretation of the fourth commandment, which
+permitted works of mercy to men--nay, even the drawing of an ox or an
+ass out of a pit--on the Sabbath. At any rate, the Saturday night was
+free to the most scrupulous of observers of the Law.
+
+These are the facts of the case as stated by the oldest extant
+narrative of them. I do not see why any one should have a word to say
+against the inherent probability of that narrative; and, for my part,
+I am quite ready to accept it as an historical fact, that so much and
+no more is positively known of the end of Jesus of Nazareth. On what
+grounds can a reasonable man be asked to believe any more? So far as
+the narrative in the first gospel, on the one hand, and those in the
+third gospel and the Acts, on the other, go beyond what is stated in
+the second gospel, they are hopelessly discrepant with one another.
+And this is the more significant because the pregnant phrase "some
+doubted," in the first gospel, is ignored in the third.
+
+But it is said that we have the witness Paul speaking to us directly
+in the Epistles. There is little doubt that we have, and a very
+singular witness he is. According to his own showing, Paul, in the
+vigour of his manhood, with every means of becoming acquainted, at
+first hand, with the evidence of eye-witnesses, not merely refused to
+credit them, but "persecuted the church of God and made havoc of it."
+The reasoning of Stephen fell dead upon the acute intellect of this
+zealot for the traditions of his fathers: his eyes were blind to the
+ecstatic illumination of the martyr's countenance "as it had been the
+face of an angel;" and when, at the words "Behold, I see the heavens
+opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God," the
+murderous mob rushed upon and stoned the rapt disciple of Jesus, Paul
+ostentatiously made himself their official accomplice.
+
+Yet this strange man, because he has a vision, one day, at once, and
+with equally headlong zeal, flies to the opposite pole of opinion. And
+he is most careful to tell us that he abstained from any
+re-examination of the facts.
+
+     Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood; neither
+     went I up to Jerusalem to them which were Apostles before
+     me; but I went away into Arabia. (Galatians i. 16, 17.)
+
+I do not presume to quarrel with Paul's procedure. If it satisfied
+him, that was his affair; and, if it satisfies anyone else, I am not
+called upon to dispute the right of that person to be satisfied. But I
+certainly have the right to say that it would not satisfy me, in like
+case; that I should be very much ashamed to pretend that it could, or
+ought to, satisfy me; and that I can entertain but a very low estimate
+of the value of the evidence of people who are to be satisfied in this
+fashion, when questions of objective fact, in which their faith is
+interested, are concerned. So that when I am called upon to believe a
+great deal more than the oldest gospel tells me about the final events
+of the history of Jesus on the authority of Paul (1 Corinthians xv.
+5-8) I must pause. Did he think it, at any subsequent time, worth
+while "to confer with flesh and blood," or, in modern phrase, to
+re-examine the facts for himself? or was he ready to accept anything
+that fitted in with his preconceived ideas? Does he mean, when he
+speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the crucifixion as if
+they were of the same kind, that they were all visions, like the
+manifestation to himself? And, finally, how is this account to be
+reconciled with those in the first and third gospels--which, as we
+have seen, disagree with one another?
+
+Until these questions are satisfactorily answered, I am afraid that,
+so far as I am concerned, Paul's testimony cannot be seriously
+regarded, except as it may afford evidence of the state of traditional
+opinion at the time at which he wrote, say between 55 and 60 A.D.;
+that is, more than twenty years after the event; a period much more
+than sufficient for the development of any amount of mythology about
+matters of which nothing was really known. A few years later, among
+the contemporaries and neighbours of the Jews, and, if the most
+probable interpretation of the Apocalypse can he trusted, among the
+followers of Jesus also, it was fully believed, in spite of all the
+evidence to the contrary, that the Emperor Nero was not really dead,
+but that he was hidden away somewhere in the East, and would speedily
+come again at the head of a great army, to be revenged upon his
+enemies.[72]
+
+Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for the opinion that Dr.
+Wace's challenge touching the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer,
+and the Passion was more valorous than discreet. After all this
+discussion, I am still at the agnostic point. Tell me, first, what
+Jesus can be proved to have been, said, and done, and I will say
+whether I believe him, or in him,[73] or not. As Dr. Wace admits that
+I have dissipated his lingering shade of unbelief about the
+bedevilment of the Gadarene pigs, he might have done something to help
+mine. Instead of that, he manifests a total want of conception of the
+nature of the obstacles which impede the conversion of his "infidels."
+
+The truth I believe to be, that the difficulties in the way of
+arriving at a sure conclusion as to these matters, from the Sermon on
+the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, or any other data offered by the
+Synoptic gospels (and _a fortiori_ from the fourth gospel), are
+insuperable. Every one of these records is coloured by the
+prepossessions of those among whom the primitive traditions arose, and
+of those by whom they were collected and edited: and the difficulty of
+making allowance for these prepossessions is enhanced by our ignorance
+of the exact dates at which the documents were first put together; of
+the extent to which they have been subsequently worked over and
+interpolated; and of the historical sense, or want of sense, and the
+dogmatic tendencies of their compilers and editors. Let us see if
+there is any other road which will take us into something better than
+negation.
+
+There is a widespread notion that the "primitive Church," while under
+the guidance of the Apostles and their immediate successors, was a
+sort of dogmatic dovecot, pervaded by the most loving unity and
+doctrinal harmony. Protestants, especially, are fond of attributing to
+themselves the merit of being nearer "the Church of the Apostles" than
+their neighbours; and they are the less to be excused for their
+strange delusion because they are great readers of the documents which
+prove the exact contrary. The fact is that, in the course of the first
+three centuries of its existence, the Church rapidly underwent a
+process of evolution of the most remarkable character, the final stage
+of which is far more different from the first than Anglicanism is from
+Quakerism. The key to the comprehension of the problem of the origin
+of that which is now called "Christianity," and its relation to Jesus
+of Nazareth, lies here. Nor can we arrive at any sound conclusion as
+to what it is probable that Jesus actually said and did, without being
+clear on this head. By far the most important and subsequently
+influential steps in the evolution of Christianity took place in the
+course of the century, more or less, which followed upon the
+crucifixion. It is almost the darkest period of Church history, but,
+most fortunately, the beginning and the end of the period are brightly
+illuminated by the contemporary evidence of two writers of whose
+historical existence there is no doubt,[74] and against the
+genuineness of whose most important works there is no widely-admitted
+objection. These are Justin, the philosopher and martyr, and Paul, the
+Apostle to the Gentiles. I shall call upon these witnesses only to
+testify to the condition of opinion among those who called themselves
+disciples of Jesus in their time.
+
+Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, which was written
+somewhere about the middle of the second century, enumerates certain
+categories of persons who, in his opinion, will, or will not, be
+saved,[75] These are:--
+
+1. Orthodox Jews who refuse to believe that those who do observe it to
+be heretics. _Saved_.
+
+2. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ; but who
+insist on the observance of the Law by Gentile converts. _Not Saved_.
+
+3. Jews who observe the Law; believe Jesus to be the Christ, and hold
+that Gentile converts need not observe the Law. _Saved_ (in Justin's
+opinion; but some of his fellow-Christians think the contrary).
+
+4. Gentile converts to the belief in Jesus as the Christ, who observe
+the Law. _Saved_ (possibly).
+
+5. Gentile believers in Jesus as the Christ, who do not observe the
+Law themselves (except so far as the refusal of idol sacrifices), but
+do not consider those who do observe it heretics. _Saved_ (this is
+Justin's own view).
+
+6. Gentile believers who do not observe the Law, except in refusing
+idol sacrifices, and hold those who do observe it to be heretics.
+_Saved_.
+
+7. Gentiles who believe Jesus to be the Christ and call themselves
+Christians, but who eat meats sacrificed to idols. _Not Saved_.
+
+8. Gentiles who disbelieve in Jesus as the Christ. _Not Saved_.
+
+Justin does not consider Christians who believe in the natural birth
+of Jesus, of whom he implies that there is a respectable minority, to
+be heretics, though he himself strongly holds the preternatural birth
+of Jesus and his pre-existence as the "Logos" or "Word." He conceives
+the Logos to be a second God, inferior to the first, unknowable God,
+with respect to whom Justin, like Philo, is a complete agnostic. The
+Holy Spirit is not regarded by Justin as a separate personality, and
+is often mixed up with the "Logos." The doctrine of the natural
+immortality of the soul is, for Justin, a heresy; and he is as firm a
+believer in the resurrection of the body, as in the speedy Second
+Coming and the establishment of the millennium.
+
+The pillar of the Church in the middle of the second century--a
+much-travelled native of Samaria--was certainly well acquainted with
+Rome, probably with Alexandria; and it is likely that he knew the
+state of opinion throughout the length and breadth of the Christian
+world as well as any man of his time. If the various categories above
+enumerated are arranged in a series thus:--
+
+                     _Justin's Christianity_
+                        ________/\__________
+                       /                    \
+_Orthodox_    _Judaeo-Christianity_     _Idolothytic_
+_Judaism_      ______/\______          _Christianity_   _Paganism_
+              /              \
+      I.     II.  III.  IV.    V.       VI.  VII.          VIII.
+
+it is obvious that they form a gradational series from orthodox
+Judaism, on the extreme left, to Paganism, whether philosophic or
+popular, on the extreme right; and it will further be observed that,
+while Justin's conception of Christianity is very broad, he rigorously
+excludes two classes of persons who, in his time, called themselves
+Christians; namely, those who insist on circumcision and other
+observances of the Law on the part of Gentile converts; that is to
+say, the strict Judaeo-Christians (II.); and, on the other hand, those
+who assert the lawfulness of eating meat offered to idols--whether
+they are Gnostic or not (VII.). These last I have called "idolothytic"
+Christians, because I cannot devise a better name, not because it is
+strictly defensible etymologically.
+
+At the present moment, I do not suppose there is an English missionary
+in any heathen land who would trouble himself whether the materials of
+his dinner had been previously offered to idols or not. On the other
+hand, I suppose there is no Protestant sect within the pale of
+orthodoxy, to say nothing of the Roman and Greek Churches, which would
+hesitate to declare the practice of circumcision and the observance of
+the Jewish Sabbath and dietary rules, shockingly heretical.
+
+Modern Christianity has, in fact, not only shifted far to the right of
+Justin's position, but it is of much narrower compass.
+
+                             _Justin_
+                     ___________/\________________
+                    /                             \
+           _Judaeo-Christianity_   _Modern Christianity_  _Paganism_
+_Judaism_     _____/\_____                   _______/\_______
+             /            \                 /                \
+    I.     II.    III.     IV.        V.   VI.    VII.     VIII.
+
+For, though it includes VII., and even, in saint and relic worship,
+cuts a "monstrous cantle" out of paganism, it excludes, not only all
+Judaeo-Christians, but all who doubt that such are heretics. Ever since
+the thirteenth century, the Inquisition would have cheerfully burned,
+and in Spain did abundantly burn, all persons who came under the
+categories II., III., IV., V. And the wolf would play the same havoc
+now, if it could only get its blood-stained jaws free from the muzzle
+imposed by the secular arm.
+
+Further, there is not a Protestant body except the Unitarian, which
+would not declare Justin himself a heretic, on account of his doctrine
+of the inferior godship of the Logos; while I am very much afraid
+that, in strict logic, Dr. Wace would be under the necessity, so
+painful to him, of calling him an "infidel," on the same and on other
+grounds.
+
+Now let us turn to our other authority. If there is any result of
+critical investigations of the sources of Christianity which is
+certain,[76] it is that Paul of Tarsus wrote the Epistle to the
+Galatians somewhere between the years 55 and 60 A.D., that is to say,
+roughly, twenty, or five-and-twenty years after the crucifixion. If
+this is so, the Epistle to the Galatians is one of the oldest, if not
+the very oldest, of extant documentary evidences of the state of the
+primitive Church. And, be it observed, if it is Paul's writing, it
+unquestionably furnishes us with the evidence of a participator in the
+transactions narrated. With the exception of two or three of the other
+Pauline Epistles, there is not one solitary book in the New Testament
+of the authorship and authority of which we have such good evidence.
+
+And what is the state of things we find disclosed? A bitter quarrel,
+in his account of which Paul by no means minces matters, or hesitates
+to hurl defiant sarcasms against those who were "reputed to be
+pillars": James "the brother of the Lord," Peter, the rock on whom
+Jesus is said to have built his Church, and John, "the beloved
+disciple." And no deference toward "the rock" withholds Paul from
+charging Peter to his face with "dissimulation."
+
+The subject of the hot dispute was simply this. Were Gentile converts
+bound to obey the Law or not? Paul answered in the negative; and,
+acting upon his opinion, he had created at Antioch (and elsewhere) a
+specifically "Christian" community, the sole qualifications for
+admission into which were the confession of the belief that Jesus was
+the Messiah, and baptism upon that confession. In the epistle in
+question, Paul puts this--his "gospel," as he calls it--in its most
+extreme form. Not only does he deny the necessity of conformity with
+the Law, but he declares such conformity to have a negative value.
+"Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye receive circumcision,
+Christ will profit you nothing" (Galatians v. 2). He calls the legal
+observances "beggarly rudiments," and anathematises every one who
+preaches to the Galatians any other gospel than his own. That is to
+say, by direct consequence, he anathematises the Nazarenes of
+Jerusalem, whose zeal for the Law is testified by James in a passage
+of the Acts cited further on. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians,
+dealing with the question of eating meat offered to idols, it is clear
+that Paul himself thinks it a matter of indifference; but he advises
+that it should not he done, for the sake of the weaker brethren. On
+the other hand, the Nazarenes of Jerusalem most strenuously opposed
+Paul's "gospel," insisting on every convert becoming a regular Jewish
+proselyte, and consequently on his observance of the whole Law; and
+this party was led by James and Peter and John (Galatians ii. 9). Paul
+does not suggest that the question of principle was settled by the
+discussion referred to in Galatians. All he says is, that it ended in
+the practical agreement that he and Barnabas should do as they had
+been doing, in respect to the Gentiles; while James and Peter and John
+should deal in their own fashion with Jewish converts. Afterwards, he
+complains bitterly of Peter, because, when on a visit to Antioch, he,
+at first, inclined to Paul's view and ate with the Gentile converts;
+but when "certain came from James," "drew back, and separated himself,
+fearing them that were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews
+dissembled likewise with him; insomuch as even Barnabas was carried
+away with their dissimulation" (Galatians ii. 12-13).
+
+There is but one conclusion to be drawn from Paul's account of this
+famous dispute, the settlement of which determined the fortunes of
+the nascent religion. It is that the disciples at Jerusalem, headed by
+"James, the Lord's brother," and by the leading apostles, Peter and
+John, were strict Jews, who had objected to admit any converts into
+their body, unless these, either by birth, or by becoming proselytes,
+were also strict Jews. In fact, the sole difference between James and
+Peter and John, with the body of the disciples whom they led and the
+Jews by whom they were surrounded, and with whom they, for many years,
+shared the religious observances of the Temple, was that they believed
+that the Messiah, whom the leaders of the nation yet looked for, had
+already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
+
+The Acts of the Apostles is hardly a very trustworthy history; it is
+certainly of later date than the Pauline Epistles, supposing them to
+be genuine. And the writer's version of the conference of which Paul
+gives so graphic a description, if that is correct, is unmistakably
+coloured with all the art of a reconciler, anxious to cover up a
+scandal. But it is none the less instructive on this account. The
+judgment of the "council" delivered by James is that the Gentile
+converts shall merely "abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and
+from blood and from things strangled, and from fornication." But
+notwithstanding the accommodation in which the writer of the Acts
+would have us believe, the Jerusalem Church held to its endeavour to
+retain the observance of the Law. Long after the conference, some time
+after the writing of the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians,
+and immediately after the despatch of that to the Romans, Paul makes
+his last visit to Jerusalem, and presents himself to James and all the
+elders. And this is what the Acts tells us of the interview:--
+
+     And they said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many
+     thousands [or myriads] there are among the Jews of them
+     which have believed; and they are all zealous for the law;
+     and they have been informed concerning thee, that thou
+     teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to
+     forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their
+     children, neither to walk after the customs. (Acts xxi. 20,
+     21.)
+
+They therefore request that he should perform a certain public
+religious act in the Temple, in order that
+
+     all shall know that there is no truth in the things whereof
+     they have been informed concerning thee; but that thou
+     thyself walkest orderly, keeping the law (_ibid_. 24).[77]
+
+How far Paul could do what he is here requested to do, and which the
+writer of the Acts goes on to say he did, with a clear conscience, if
+he wrote the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, I may leave
+any candid reader of these epistles to decide. The point to which I
+wish to direct attention is the declaration that the Jerusalem
+Church, led by the brother of Jesus and by his personal disciples and
+friends, twenty years and more after his death, consisted of strict
+and zealous Jews.
+
+Tertullus, the orator, caring very little about the internal
+dissensions of the followers of Jesus, speaks of Paul as a "ringleader
+of the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts xxiv. 5), which must have affected
+James much in the same way as it would have moved the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, in George Fox's day, to hear the latter called a
+"ringleader of the sect of Anglicans." In fact, "Nazarene" was, as is
+well known, the distinctive appellation applied to Jesus; his
+immediate followers were known as Nazarenes; while the congregation of
+the disciples, and, later, of converts at Jerusalem--the Jerusalem
+Church--was emphatically the "sect of the Nazarenes," no more, in
+itself, to be regarded as anything outside Judaism than the sect of
+the Sadducees, or that of the Essenes.[78] In fact, the tenets of both
+the Sadducees and the Essenes diverged much more widely from the
+Pharisaic standard of orthodoxy than Nazarenism did.
+
+Let us consider the condition of affairs now (A.D. 50-60) in relation
+to that which obtained in Justin's time, a century later. It is plain
+that the Nazarenes--presided over by James, "the brother of the Lord,"
+and comprising within their body all the twelve apostles--belonged to
+Justin's second category of "Jews who observe the Law, believe Jesus
+to be the Christ, but who insist on the observance of the Law by
+Gentile converts," up till the time at which the controversy reported
+by Paul arose. They then, according to Paul, simply allowed him to
+form his congregations of non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and
+elsewhere; and it would seem that it was to these converts, who would
+come under Justin's fifth category, that the title of "Christian" was
+first applied. If any of these Christians had acted upon the more than
+half-permission given by Paul, and had eaten meats offered to idols,
+they would have belonged to Justin's seventh category.
+
+Hence, it appears that, if Justin's opinion, which was probably that
+of the Church generally in the middle of the second century, was
+correct, James and Peter and John and their followers could not be
+saved; neither could Paul, if he carried into practice his views as to
+the indifference of eating meats offered to idols. Or, to put the
+matter another way, the centre of gravity of orthodoxy, which is at
+the extreme right of the series in the nineteenth century, was at the
+extreme left just before the middle of the first century, when the
+"sect of the Nazarenes" constituted the whole church founded by Jesus
+and the apostles; while, in the time of Justin, it lay mid-way between
+the two. It is therefore a profound mistake to imagine that the
+Judaeo-Christians (Nazarenes and Ebionites) of later times were
+heretical outgrowths from a primitive universalist "Christianity." On
+the contrary, the universalist "Christianity" is an outgrowth from the
+primitive, purely Jewish, Nazarenism; which, gradually eliminating all
+the ceremonial and dietary parts of the Jewish law, has thrust aside
+its parent, and all the intermediate stages of its development, into
+the position of damnable heresies.
+
+Such being the case, we are in a position to form a safe judgment of
+the limits within which the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth must have
+been confined. Ecclesiastical authority would have us believe that the
+words which are given at the end of the first Gospel, "Go ye,
+therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in
+the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost," are part
+of the last commands of Jesus, issued at the moment of his parting
+with the eleven. If so, Peter and John must have heard these words;
+they are too plain to be misunderstood; and the occasion is too solemn
+for them ever to be forgotten. Yet the "Acts" tells us that Peter
+needed a vision to enable him so much as to baptize Cornelius; and
+Paul, in the Galatians, knows nothing of words which would have
+completely borne him out as against those who, though they heard, must
+be supposed to have either forgotten, or ignored them. On the other
+hand, Peter and John, who are supposed to have heard the "Sermon on
+the Mount," know nothing of the saying that Jesus had not come to
+destroy the Law, but that every jot and tittle of the Law must be
+fulfilled, which surely would have been pretty good evidence for their
+view of the question.
+
+We are sometimes told that the personal friends and daily companions
+of Jesus remained zealous Jews and opposed Paul's innovations, because
+they were hard of heart and dull of comprehension. This hypothesis is
+hardly in accordance with the concomitant faith of those who adopt it,
+in the miraculous insight and superhuman sagacity of their Master; nor
+do I see any way of getting it to harmonise with the orthodox
+postulate; namely, that Matthew was the author of the first gospel and
+John of the fourth. If that is so, then, most assuredly, Matthew was
+no dullard; and as for the fourth gospel--a theosophic romance of the
+first order--it could have been written by none but a man of
+remarkable literary capacity, who had drunk deep of Alexandrian
+philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine of the writer of the fourth gospel
+is more remote from that of the "sect of the Nazarenes" than is that
+of Paul himself. I am quite aware that orthodox critics have been
+capable of maintaining that John, the Nazarene, who was probably well
+past fifty years of age, when he is supposed to have written the most
+thoroughly Judaising book in the New Testament--the Apocalypse--in the
+roughest of Greek, underwent an astounding metamorphosis of both
+doctrine and style by the time he reached the ripe age of ninety or
+so, and provided the world with a history in which the acutest critic
+cannot [always] make out where the speeches of Jesus end and the text
+of the narrative begins; while that narrative is utterly
+irreconcilable, in regard to matters of fact, with that of his
+fellow-apostle, Matthew.
+
+The end of the whole matter is this:--The "sect of the Nazarenes," the
+brother and the immediate followers of Jesus, commissioned by him as
+apostles, and those who were taught by them up to the year 50 A.D.,
+were not "Christians" in the sense in which that term has been
+understood ever since its asserted origin at Antioch, but Jews--strict
+orthodox Jews--whose belief in the Messiahship of Jesus never led to
+their exclusion from the Temple services, nor would have shut them out
+from the wide embrace of Judaism.[79] The open proclamation of their
+special view about the Messiah was doubtless offensive to the
+Pharisees, just as rampant Low Churchism is offensive to bigoted High
+Churchism in our own country; or as any kind of dissent is offensive
+to fervid religionists of all creeds. To the Sadducees, no doubt, the
+political danger of any Messianic movement was serious; and they would
+have been glad to put down Nazarenism, lest it should end in useless
+rebellion against their Roman masters, like that other Galilean
+movement headed by Judas, a generation earlier. Galilee was always a
+hotbed of seditious enthusiasm against the rule of Rome; and high
+priest and procurator alike had need to keep a sharp eye upon natives
+of that district. On the whole, however, the Nazarenes were but little
+troubled for the first twenty years of their existence; and the
+undying hatred of the Jews against those later converts, whom they
+regarded as apostates and fautors of a sham Judaism, was awakened by
+Paul. From their point of view, he was a mere renegade Jew, opposed
+alike to orthodox Judaism and to orthodox Nazarenism; and whose
+teachings threatened Judaism with destruction. And, from their point
+of view, they were quite right. In the course of a century, Pauline
+influences had a large share in driving primitive Nazarenism from
+being the very heart of the new faith into the position of scouted
+error; and the spirit of Paul's doctrine continued its work of
+driving Christianity farther and farther away from Judaism, until
+"meats offered to idols" might be eaten without scruple, while the
+Nazarene methods of observing even the Sabbath, or the Passover, were
+branded with the mark of Judaising heresy.
+
+But if the primitive Nazarenes of whom the Acts speak were orthodox
+Jews, what sort of probability can there be that Jesus was anything
+else? How can he have founded the universal religion which was not
+heard of till twenty years after his death?[80] That Jesus possessed,
+in a rare degree, the gift of attaching men to his person and to his
+fortunes; that he was the author of many a striking saying, and the
+advocate of equity, of love, and of humility; that he may have
+disregarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal observance, and
+appealed rather to those noble conceptions of religion which
+constituted the pith and kernel of the teaching of the great prophets
+of his nation seven hundred years earlier; and that, in the last
+scenes of his career, he may have embodied the ideal sufferer of
+Isaiah, may be, as I think it is, extremely probable. But all this
+involves not a step beyond the borders of orthodox Judaism. Again,
+who is to say whether Jesus proclaimed himself the veritable Messiah,
+expected by his nation since the appearance of the pseudoprophetic
+work of Daniel, a century and a half before his time; or whether the
+enthusiasm of his followers gradually forced him to assume that
+position?
+
+But one thing is quite certain: if that belief in the speedy second
+coming of the Messiah which was shared by all parties in the primitive
+Church, whether Nazarene or Pauline; which Jesus is made to prophesy,
+over and over again, in the Synoptic gospels; and which dominated the
+life of Christians during the first century after the crucifixion;--if
+he believed and taught that, then assuredly he was under an illusion,
+and he is responsible for that which the mere effluxion of time has
+demonstrated to be a prodigious error.
+
+When I ventured to doubt "whether any Protestant theologian who has a
+reputation to lose will say that he believes the Gadarene story," it
+appears that I reckoned without Dr. Wace, who, referring to this
+passage in my paper, says:--
+
+     He will judge whether I fall under his description; but I
+     repeat that I believe it, and that he has removed the only
+     objection to my believing it (p. 363).
+
+Far be it from me to set myself up as a judge of any such delicate
+question as that put before me; but I think I may venture to express
+the conviction that, in the matter of courage, Dr. Wace has raised for
+himself a monument _aere perennius._ For really, in my poor judgment, a
+certain splendid intrepidity, such as one admires in the leader of a
+forlorn hope, is manifested by Dr. Wace when he solemnly affirms that
+he believes the Gadarene story on the evidence offered. I feel less
+complimented perhaps than I ought to do, when I am told that I have
+been an accomplice in extinguishing in Dr. Wace's mind the last
+glimmer of doubt which common sense may have suggested. In fact, I
+must disclaim all responsibility for the use to which the information
+I supplied has been put. I formally decline to admit that the
+expression of my ignorance whether devils, in the existence of which I
+do not believe, if they did exist, might or might not be made to go
+out of men into pigs, can, as a matter of logic, have been of any use
+whatever to a person who already believed in devils and in the
+historical accuracy of the gospels.
+
+Of the Gadarene story, Dr. Wace, with all solemnity and twice over,
+affirms that he "believes it." I am sorry to trouble him further, but
+what does he mean by "it"? Because there are two stories, one in
+"Mark" and "Luke," and the other in "Matthew." In the former, which I
+quoted in my previous paper, there is one possessed man; in the
+latter there are two. The story is told fully, with the vigorous
+homely diction and the picturesque details of a piece of folklore, in
+the second gospel. The immediately antecedent event is the storm on
+the Lake of Gennesaret. The immediately consequent events are the
+message from the ruler of the synagogue and the healing of the woman
+with an issue of blood. In the third gospel, the order of events is
+exactly the same, and there is an extremely close general and verbal
+correspondence between the narratives of the miracle. Both agree in
+stating that there was only one possessed man, and that he was the
+residence of many devils, whose name was "Legion."
+
+In the first gospel, the event which immediately precedes the Gadarene
+affair is, as before, the storm; the message from the ruler and the
+healing of the issue are separated from it by the accounts of the
+healing of a paralytic, of the calling of Matthew, and of a discussion
+with some Pharisees. Again, while the second gospel speaks of the
+country of the "Gerasenes" as the locality of the event, the third
+gospel has "Gerasenes," "Gergesenes," and "Gadarenes" in different
+ancient MSS.; while the first has "Gadarenes."
+
+The really important points to be noticed, however, in the narrative
+of the first gospel, are these--that there are two possessed men
+instead of one; and that while the story is abbreviated by omissions,
+what there is of it is often verbally identical with the corresponding
+passages in the other two gospels. The most unabashed of reconcilers
+cannot well say that one man is the same as two, or two as one; and,
+though the suggestion really has been made, that two different
+miracles, agreeing in all essential particulars, except the number of
+the possessed, were effected immediately after the storm on the lake,
+I should be sorry to accuse any one of seriously adopting it. Nor will
+it he pretended that the allegory refuge is accessible in this
+particular case.
+
+So, when Dr. Wace says that he believes in the synoptic evangelists'
+account of the miraculous bedevilment of swine, I may fairly ask which
+of them does he believe? Does he hold by the one evangelist's story,
+or by that of the two evangelists? And having made his election, what
+reasons has he to give for his choice? If it is suggested that the
+witness of two is to be taken against that of one, not only is the
+testimony dealt with in that common-sense fashion against which the
+theologians of his school protest so warmly; not only is all question
+of inspiration at an end, but the further inquiry arises, After all,
+is it the testimony of two against one? Are the authors of the
+versions in the second and third gospels really independent witnesses?
+In order to answer this question, it is only needful to place the
+English versions of the two side by side, and compare them carefully.
+It will then be seen that the coincidences between them, not merely in
+substance, but in arrangement, and in the use of identical words in
+the same order, are such, that only two alternatives are conceivable:
+either one evangelist freely copied from the other, or both based
+themselves upon a common source, which may either have been a written
+document, or a definite oral tradition learned by heart. Assuredly,
+these two testimonies are not those of independent witnesses. Further,
+when the narrative in the first gospel is compared with that in the
+other two, the same fact comes out.
+
+Supposing, then, that Dr. Wace is right in his assumption that
+Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote the works which we find attributed to
+them by tradition, what is the value of their agreement, even that
+something more or less like this particular miracle occurred, since it
+is demonstrable, either that all depend on some antecedent statement,
+of the authorship of which nothing is known, or that two are dependent
+upon the third?
+
+Dr. Wace says he believes the Gadarene story; whichever version of it
+he accepts, therefore, he believes that Jesus said what he is stated
+in all the versions to have said, and thereby virtually declared that
+the theory of the nature of the spiritual world involved in the story
+is true. Now I hold that this theory is false, that it is a monstrous
+and mischievous fiction; and I unhesitatingly express my disbelief in
+any assertion that it is true, by whomsoever made. So that, if Dr.
+Wace is right in his belief, he is also quite right in classing me
+among the people he calls "infidels"; and although I cannot fulfil the
+eccentric expectation that I shall glory in a title which, from my
+point of view, it would be simply silly to adopt, I certainly shall
+rejoice not to be reckoned among "Christians" so long as the
+profession of belief in such stories as the Gadarene pig affair, on
+the strength of a tradition of unknown origin, of which two discrepant
+reports, also of unknown origin, alone remain, forms any part of the
+Christian faith. And, although I have, more than once, repudiated the
+gift of prophecy, yet I think I may venture to express the
+anticipation, that if "Christians" generally are going to follow the
+line taken by Dr. Wace, it will not be long before all men of common
+sense qualify for a place among the "infidels."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [64] I may perhaps return to the question of the authorship
+          of the Gospels. For the present I must content myself
+          with warning my readers against any reliance upon Dr.
+          Wace's statements as to the results arrived at by
+          modern criticism. They are as gravely as surprisingly
+          erroneous.
+
+     [65] The United States ought, perhaps, to be added, but
+          I am not sure.
+
+     [66] Imagine that all our chairs of astronomy had been
+          founded in the fourteenth century, and that their
+          incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In
+          that case, with every respect for the efforts of
+          persons thus hampered to attain and expound the truth,
+          I think men of common sense would go elsewhere to learn
+          astronomy. Zeller's _Vortraege und Abhandlungen_ were
+          published and came into my hands a quarter of a century
+          ago. The writer's rank, as a theologian to begin with,
+          and subsequently as a historian of Greek philosophy, is
+          of the highest. Among these essays are two--_Das
+          Urchirstenthum_ and _Die Tuebinger historische
+          Schule_--which are likely to be of more use to those
+          who wish to know the real state of the case than all
+          that the official "apologists," with their one eye on
+          truth and the other on the tenets of their sect, have
+          written. For the opinion of a scientific theologian
+          about theologians of this stamp see pp. 225 and 227 of
+          the _Vortraege_.
+
+     [67] I suppose this is what Dr. Wace is thinking about when
+          he says that I allege that there "is no visible escape"
+          from the supposition of an _Ur-Marcus_ (p. 367). That a
+          "theologian of repute" should confound an indisputable
+          fact with one of the modes of explaining that fact is
+          not so singular as those who are unaccustomed to the
+          ways of theologians might imagine.
+
+     [68] Any examiner whose duty it has been to examine into a
+          case of "copying" will be particularly well prepared to
+          appreciate the force of the case stated in that most
+          excellent little book, _The Common Tradition of the
+          Synoptic Gospels_, by Dr. Abbott and Mr. Rushbrooke
+          (Macmillan, 1884). To those who have not passed through
+          such painful experiences I may recommend the brief
+          discussion of the genuineness of the "Casket Letters"
+          in my friend Mr. Skelton's interesting book, _Maitland
+          of Lethington_. The second edition of Holtzmann's
+          _Lehrbuch_, published in 1886, gives a remarkably fair
+          and full account of the present results of criticism.
+          At p. 366 he writes that the present burning question
+          is whether the "relatively primitive narrative and the
+          root of the other synoptic texts is contained in
+          Matthew or in Mark. It is only on this point that
+          properly-informed (_sachkundige_) critics differ," and
+          he decides in favour of Mark.
+
+     [69] Holtzmann (_Die synoptischen Evangelien_, 1863, p. 75),
+          following Ewald, argues that the "Source A" (= the
+          threefold tradition, more or less) contained something
+          that answered to the "Sermon on the Plain" immediately
+          after the words of our present Mark, "And he cometh
+          into a house" (iii. 19). But what conceivable motive
+          could "Mark" have for omitting it? Holtzmann has no
+          doubt, however, that the "Sermon on the Mount" is a
+          compilation, or, as he calls it in his
+          recently-published _Lehrbuch_ (p. 372), "an artificial
+          mosaic work."
+
+     [70] See Schuerer, _Geschichte des juedischen Volkes_,
+          Zweiter Thiel, p. 384.
+
+     [71] Spacious, because a young man could sit in it "on the
+          right side" (xv. 5), and therefore with plenty of room
+          to spare.
+
+     [72] King Herod had not the least difficulty in supposing
+          the resurrection of John the Baptist--"John, whom I
+          beheaded, he is risen" (Mark vi. 16).
+
+     [73] I am very sorry for the interpolated "in," because
+          citation ought to be accurate in small things as in
+          great. But what difference it makes whether one
+          "believes Jesus" or "believes in Jesus" much thought
+          has not enabled me to discover. If you "believe him"
+          you must believe him to be what he professed to
+          be--that is, "believe in him;" and if you "believe in
+          him" you must necessarily "believe him."
+
+     [74] True for Justin: but there is a school of theological
+          critics, who more or less question the historical
+          reality of Paul, and the genuineness of even the four
+          cardinal epistles.
+
+     [75] See _Dial. cum Tryphone_, Sec.47 and Sec.35. It is to be
+          understood that Justin does not arrange these
+          categories in order, as I have done.
+
+     [76] I guard myself against being supposed to affirm that
+          even the four cardinal epistles of Paul may not have
+          been seriously tampered with. See note 1, p. 287 above.
+
+     [77] Paul, in fact, is required to commit in Jerusalem, an act
+          of the same character as that which he brands as
+          "dissimulation" on the part of Peter in Antioch.
+
+     [78] All this was quite clearly pointed out by Ritschl nearly
+          forty years ago. See _Die Entstchung der
+          alt-katholischen Kirche_ (1850), p. 108.
+
+     [79] "If every one was baptized as soon as he acknowledged
+          Jesus to be the Messiah, the first Christians can have
+          been aware of no other essential differences from the
+          Jews."--Zeller, _Vortraege_ (1865), p. 26.
+
+     [80] Dr. Harnack, in the lately-published second edition of
+          his _Dogmengeschichte_, says (p. 39), "Jesus Christ
+          brought forward no new doctrine;" and again (p. 65),
+          "It is not difficult to set against every portion of
+          the utterances of Jesus an observation which deprives
+          him of originality." See also Zusatz 4, on the same
+          page.
+
+
+
+
+IX: AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
+
+[1889]
+
+Nemo ergo ex me scire quaerat, quod me nescire scio, nisi
+forte ut nescire discat.--AUGUSTINUS, _De Civ. Dei_, xii. 7.
+
+
+[81] The present discussion has arisen out of the use, which has
+become general in the last few years, of the terms "Agnostic" and
+"Agnosticism."
+
+The people who call themselves "Agnostics" have been charged with
+doing so because they have not the courage to declare themselves
+"Infidels." It has been insinuated that they have adopted a new name
+in order to escape the unpleasantness which attaches to their proper
+denomination. To this wholly erroneous imputation, I have replied by
+showing that the term "Agnostic" did, as a matter of fact, arise in a
+manner which negatives it; and my statement has not been, and cannot
+be, refuted. Moreover, speaking for myself, and without impugning the
+right of any other person to use the term in another sense, I further
+say that Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed,
+nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses
+absolute faith in the validity of a principle, which is as much
+ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways,
+but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he
+is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can
+produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is
+what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is
+essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as
+immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which
+men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and
+that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in
+such inadequately supported propositions. The justification of the
+Agnostic principle lies in the success which follows upon its
+application, whether in the field of natural, or in that of civil,
+history; and in the fact that, so far as these topics are concerned,
+no sane man thinks of denying its validity.
+
+Still speaking for myself, I add, that though Agnosticism is not, and
+cannot be, a creed, except in so far as its general principle is
+concerned; yet that the application of that principle results in the
+denial of, or the suspension of judgment concerning, a number of
+propositions respecting which our contemporary ecclesiastical
+"gnostics" profess entire certainty. And, in so far as these
+ecclesiastical persons can be justified in their old-established
+custom (which many nowadays think more honoured in the breach than the
+observance) of using opprobrious names to those who differ from them,
+I fully admit their right to call me and those who think with me
+"Infidels"; all I have ventured to urge is that they must not expect
+us to speak of ourselves by that title.
+
+The extent of the region of the uncertain, the number of the problems
+the investigation of which ends in a verdict of not proven, will vary
+according to the knowledge and the intellectual habits of the
+individual Agnostic. I do not very much care to speak of anything as
+"unknowable."[82] What I am sure about is that there are many topics
+about which I know nothing; and which, so far as I can see, are out of
+reach of my faculties. But whether these things are knowable by any
+one else is exactly one of those matters which is beyond my knowledge,
+though I may have a tolerably strong opinion as to the probabilities
+of the case. Relatively to myself, I am quite sure that the region of
+uncertainty--the nebulous country in which words play the part of
+realities--is far more extensive than I could wish. Materialism and
+Idealism; Theism and Atheism; the doctrine of the soul and its
+mortality or immortality--appear in the history of philosophy like the
+shades of Scandinavian heroes, eternally slaying one another and
+eternally coming to life again in a metaphysical "Nifelheim." It is
+getting on for twenty-five centuries, at least, since mankind began
+seriously to give their minds to these topics. Generation after
+generation, philosophy has been doomed to roll the stone uphill; and,
+just as all the world swore it was at the top, down it has rolled to
+the bottom again. All this is written in innumerable books; and he who
+will toil through them will discover that the stone is just where it
+was when the work began. Hume saw this; Kant saw it; since their time,
+more and more eyes have been cleansed of the films which prevented
+them from seeing it; until now the weight and number of those who
+refuse to be the prey of verbal mystifications has begun to tell in
+practical life.
+
+It was inevitable that a conflict should arise between Agnosticism and
+Theology; or rather, I ought to say, between Agnosticism and
+Ecclesiasticism. For Theology, the science, is one thing; and
+Ecclesiasticism, the championship of a foregone conclusion[83] as to
+the truth of a particular form of Theology, is another. With
+scientific Theology, Agnosticism has no quarrel. On the contrary, the
+Agnostic, knowing too well the influence of prejudice and
+idiosyncrasy, even on those who desire most earnestly to be impartial,
+can wish for nothing more urgently than that the scientific theologian
+should not only be at perfect liberty to thresh out the matter in his
+own fashion; but that he should, if he can, find flaws in the Agnostic
+position; and, even if demonstration is not to be had, that he should
+put, in their full force, the grounds of the conclusions he thinks
+probable. The scientific theologian admits the Agnostic principle,
+however widely his results may differ from those reached by the
+majority of Agnostics.
+
+But, as between Agnosticism and Ecclesiasticism, or, as our neighbours
+across the Channel call it, Clericalism, there can be neither peace
+nor truce. The Cleric asserts that it is morally wrong not to believe
+certain propositions, whatever the results of a strict scientific
+investigation of the evidence of these propositions. He tells us "that
+religious error is, in itself, of an immoral nature."[84] He declares
+that he has prejudged certain conclusions, and looks upon those who
+show cause for arrest of judgment as emissaries of Satan. It
+necessarily follows that, for him, the attainment of faith, not the
+ascertainment of truth, is the highest aim of mental life. And, on
+careful analysis of the nature of this faith, it will too often be
+found to be, not the mystic process of unity with the Divine,
+understood by the religious enthusiast; but that which the candid
+simplicity of a Sunday scholar once defined it to be. "Faith," said
+this unconscious plagiarist of Tertullian, "is the power of saying you
+believe things which are incredible."
+
+Now I, and many other Agnostics, believe that faith, in this sense, is
+an abomination; and though we do not indulge in the luxury of
+self-righteousness so far as to call those who are not of our way of
+thinking hard names, we do not feel that the disagreement between
+ourselves and those who hold this doctrine is even more moral than
+intellectual. It is desirable there should be an end of any mistakes
+on this topic. If our clerical opponents were clearly aware of the
+real state of the case, there would be an end of the curious delusion,
+which often appears between the lines of their writings, that those
+whom they are so fond of calling "Infidels" are people who not only
+ought to be, but in their hearts are, ashamed of themselves. It would
+be discourteous to do more than hint the antipodal opposition of this
+pleasant dream of theirs to facts.
+
+The clerics and their lay allies commonly tell us, that if we refuse
+to admit that there is good ground for expressing definite convictions
+about certain topics, the bonds of human society will dissolve and
+mankind lapse into savagery. There are several answers to this
+assertion. One is that the bonds of human society were formed without
+the aid of their theology; and, in the opinion of not a few competent
+judges, have been weakened rather than strengthened by a good deal of
+it. Greek science, Greek art, the ethics of old Israel, the social
+organisation of old Rome, contrived to come into being, without the
+help of any one who believed in a single distinctive article of the
+simplest of the Christian creeds. The science, the art, the
+jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern
+world have grown out of those of Greece and Rome--not by favour of,
+but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity,
+to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of
+this world, were alike despicable.
+
+Again, all that is best in the ethics of the modern world, in so far
+as it has not grown out of Greek thought, or Barbarian manhood, is the
+direct development of the ethics of old Israel. There is no code of
+legislation, ancient or modern, at once so just and so merciful, so
+tender to the weak and poor, as the Jewish law; and, if the Gospels
+are to be trusted, Jesus of Nazareth himself declared that he taught
+nothing but that which lay implicitly, or explicitly, in the religious
+and ethical system of his people.
+
+     And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast
+     well said that he is one; and there is none other but he,
+     and to love him with all the heart, and with all the
+     understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his
+     neighbour as himself, is much more than all whole burnt
+     offerings and sacrifices. (Mark xii. 32, 33.)
+
+Here is the briefest of summaries of the teaching of the prophets of
+Israel of the eighth century; does the Teacher, whose doctrine is thus
+set forth in his presence, repudiate the exposition? Nay; we are told,
+on the contrary, that Jesus saw that he "answered discreetly," and
+replied, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."
+
+So that I think that even if the creeds, from the so-called
+"Apostles," to the so-called "Athanasian," were swept into oblivion;
+and even if the human race should arrive at the conclusion that,
+whether a bishop washes a cup or leaves it unwashed, is not a matter
+of the least consequence, it will get on very well. The causes which
+have led to the development of morality in mankind, which have guided
+or impelled us all the way from the savage to the civilised state,
+will not cease to operate because a number of ecclesiastical
+hypotheses turn out to be baseless. And, even if the absurd notion
+that morality is more the child of speculation than of practical
+necessity and inherited instinct, had any foundation; if all the world
+is going to thieve, murder, and otherwise misconduct itself as soon as
+it discovers that certain portions of ancient history are mythical,
+what is the relevance of such arguments to any one who holds by the
+Agnostic principle?
+
+Surely, the attempt to cast out Beelzebub by the aid of Beelzebub is a
+hopeful procedure as compared to that of preserving morality by the
+aid of immorality. For I suppose it is admitted that an Agnostic may
+be perfectly sincere, may be competent, and may have studied the
+question at issue with as much care as his clerical opponents. But, if
+the Agnostic really believes what he says, the "dreadful consequence"
+argufier (consistently, I admit, with his own principles) virtually
+asks him to abstain from telling the truth, or to say what he believes
+to be untrue, because of the supposed injurious consequences to
+morality. "Beloved brethren, that we may be spotlessly moral, before
+all things let us lie," is the sum total of many an exhortation
+addressed to the "Infidel." Now, as I have already pointed out, we
+cannot oblige our exhorters. We leave the practical application of the
+convenient doctrines of "Reserve" and "Non-natural interpretation" to
+those who invented them.
+
+I trust that I have now made amends for any ambiguity, or want of
+fulness, in my previous exposition of that which I hold to be the
+essence of the Agnostic doctrine. Henceforward, I might hope to hear
+no more of the assertion that we are necessarily Materialists,
+Idealists, Atheists, Theists, or any other _ists_, if experience had
+led me to think that the proved falsity of a statement was any
+guarantee against its repetition. And those who appreciate the nature
+of our position will see, at once, that when Ecclesiasticism declares
+that we ought to believe this, that, and the other, and are very
+wicked if we don't, it is impossible for us to give any answer but
+this: We have not the slightest objection to believe anything you
+like, if you will give us good grounds for belief; but, if you cannot,
+we must respectfully refuse, even if that refusal should wreck
+mortality and insure our own damnation several times over. We are
+quite content to leave that to the decision of the future. The course
+of the past has impressed us with the firm conviction that no good
+ever comes of falsehood, and we feel warranted in refusing even to
+experiment in that direction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the course of the present discussion it has been asserted that the
+"Sermon on the Mount" and the "Lord's Prayer" furnish a summary and
+condensed view of the essentials of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth,
+set forth by himself. Now this supposed _Summa_ of Nazarene theology
+distinctly affirms the existence of a spiritual world, of a Heaven,
+and of a Hell of fire; it teaches the Fatherhood of God and the
+malignity of the Devil; it declares the superintending providence of
+the former and our need of deliverance from the machinations of the
+latter; it affirms the fact of demoniac possession and the power of
+casting out devils by the faithful. And from these premises, the
+conclusion is drawn, that those Agnostics who deny that there is any
+evidence of such a character as to justify certainty, respecting the
+existence and the nature of the spiritual world, contradict the
+express declarations of Jesus. I have replied to this argumentation by
+showing that there is strong reason to doubt the historical accuracy
+of the attribution to Jesus of either the "Sermon on the Mount" or the
+"Lord's Prayer"; and, therefore, that the conclusion in question is
+not warranted, at any rate, on the grounds set forth.
+
+But, whether the Gospels contain trustworthy statements about this and
+other alleged historical facts or not, it is quite certain that from
+them, taken together with the other books of the New Testament, we may
+collect a pretty complete exposition of that theory of the spiritual
+world which was held by both Nazarenes and Christians; and which was
+undoubtedly supposed by them to be fully sanctioned by Jesus, though
+it is just as clear that they did not imagine it contained any
+revelation by him of something heretofore unknown. If the
+pneumatological doctrine which pervades the whole New Testament is
+nowhere systematically stated, it is everywhere assumed. The writers
+of the Gospels and of the Acts take it for granted, as a matter of
+common knowledge; and it is easy to gather from these sources a series
+of propositions, which only need arrangement to form a complete
+system.
+
+In this system, Man is considered to be a duality formed of a
+spiritual element, the soul; and a corporeal[85] element, the body.
+And this duality is repeated in the Universe, which consists of a
+corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual world. The
+former consists of the earth, as its principal and central
+constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the
+earth is the air, and below is the watery abyss. Whether the heaven,
+which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell in, or below, the
+subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or incorporeal is not
+clear. However this may be, the heaven and the air, the earth and the
+abyss, are peopled by innumerable beings analogous in nature to the
+spiritual element in man, and these spirits are of two kinds, good and
+bad. The chief of the good spirits, infinitely superior to all the
+others, and their creator, as well as the creator of the corporeal
+world and of the bad spirits, is God. His residence is heaven, where
+he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good spirits; his angels, or
+messengers, and the executors of his will throughout the universe.
+
+On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits is Satan, _the_ devil
+_par excellence_. He and his company of demons are free to roam
+through all parts of the universe, except the heaven. These bad
+spirits are far superior to man in power and subtlety; and their whole
+energies are devoted to bringing physical and moral evils upon him,
+and to thwarting, so far as his power goes, the benevolent intentions
+of the Supreme Being. In fact, the souls and bodies of men form both
+the theatre and the prize of an incessant warfare between the good and
+the evil spirits--the powers of light and the powers of darkness. By
+leading Eve astray, Satan brought sin and death upon mankind. As the
+gods of the heathen, the demons are the founders and maintainers of
+idolatry; as the "powers of the air" they afflict mankind with
+pestilence and famine; as "unclean spirits" they cause disease of mind
+and body.
+
+The significance of the appearance of Jesus, in the capacity of the
+Messiah, or Christ, is the reversal of the satanic work by putting an
+end to both sin and death. He announces that the kingdom of God is at
+hand, when the "Prince of this world" shall be finally "cast out"
+(John xii. 31) from the cosmos, as Jesus, during his earthly career,
+cast him out from individuals. Then will Satan and all his devilry,
+along with the wicked whom they have seduced to their destruction, be
+hurled into the abyss of unquenchable fire--there to endure continual
+torture, without a hope of winning pardon from the merciful God, their
+Father; or of moving the glorified Messiah to one more act of pitiful
+intercession; or even of interrupting, by a momentary sympathy with
+their wretchedness, the harmonious psalmody of their brother angels
+and men, eternally lapped in bliss unspeakable.
+
+The straitest Protestant, who refuses to admit the existence of any
+source of Divine truth, except the Bible, will not deny that every
+point of the pneumatological theory here set forth has ample
+scriptural warranty. The Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, and the
+Apocalypse assert the existence of the devil, of his demons and of
+Hell, as plainly as they do that of God and his angels and Heaven. It
+is plain that the Messianic and the Satanic conceptions of the writers
+of these books are the obverse and the reverse of the same
+intellectual coinage. If we turn from Scripture to the traditions of
+the Fathers and the confessions of the Churches, it will appear that,
+in this one particular, at any rate, time has brought about no
+important deviation from primitive belief. From Justin onwards, it may
+often be a fair question whether God, or the devil, occupies a larger
+share of the attention of the Fathers. It is the devil who instigates
+the Roman authorities to persecute; the gods and goddesses of paganism
+are devils, and idolatry itself is an invention of Satan; if a saint
+falls away from grace, it is by the seduction of the demon; if heresy
+arises, the devil has suggested it; and some of the Fathers[86] go so
+far as to challenge the pagans to a sort of exorcising match, by way
+of testing the truth of Christianity. Mediaeval Christianity is at one
+with patristic, on this head. The masses, the clergy, the theologians,
+and the philosophers alike, live and move and have their being in a
+world full of demons, in which sorcery and possession are everyday
+occurrences. Nor did the Reformation make any difference. Whatever
+else Luther assailed, he left the traditional demonology untouched;
+nor could any one have entertained a more hearty and uncompromising
+belief in the devil, than he and, at a later period, the Calvinistic
+fanatics of New England did. Finally, in these last years of the
+nineteenth century, the demonological hypotheses of the first century
+are, explicitly or implicitly, held and occasionally acted upon by the
+immense majority of Christians of all confessions.
+
+Only here and there has the progress of scientific thought, outside
+the ecclesiastical world, so far affected Christians, that they and
+their teachers fight shy of the demonology of their creed. They are
+fain to conceal their real disbelief in one half of Christian doctrine
+by judicious silence about it; or by flight to those refuges for the
+logically destitute, accommodation or allegory. But the faithful who
+fly to allegory in order to escape absurdity resemble nothing so much
+as the sheep in the fable who--to save their lives--jumped into the
+pit. The allegory pit is too commodious, is ready to swallow up so
+much more than one wants to put into it. If the story of the
+temptation is an allegory; if the early recognition of Jesus as the
+Son of God by the demons is an allegory; if the plain declaration of
+the writer of the first Epistle of John (iii. 8), "To this end was the
+Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil,"
+is allegorical, then the Pauline version of the Fall may be
+allegorical, and still more the words of consecration of the
+Eucharist, or the promise of the second coming; in fact, there is not
+a dogma of ecclesiastical Christianity the scriptural basis of which
+may not be whittled away by a similar process.
+
+As to accommodation, let any honest man who can read the New Testament
+ask himself whether Jesus and his immediate friends and disciples can
+be dishonoured more grossly than by the supposition that they said
+and did that which is attributed to them; while, in reality, they
+disbelieved in Satan and his demons, in possession and in
+exorcism?[87]
+
+An eminent theologian has justly observed that we have no right to
+look at the propositions of the Christian faith with one eye open and
+the other shut. (Tract 85, p. 29.) It really is not permissible to
+see, with one eye, that Jesus is affirmed to declare the personality
+and the Fatherhood of God, His loving providence and His accessibility
+to prayer; and to shut the other to the no less definite teaching
+ascribed to Jesus, in regard to the personality and the misanthropy of
+the devil, his malignant watchfulness, and his subjection to
+exorcistic formula and rites. Jesus is made to say that the devil "was
+a murderer from the beginning" (John viii. 44) by the same authority
+as that upon which we depend for his asserted declaration that "God is
+a spirit" (John iv. 24).
+
+To those who admit the authority of the famous Vincentian dictum that
+the doctrine which has been held "always, everywhere, and by all" is
+to be received as authoritative, the demonology must possess a higher
+sanction than any other Christian dogma, except, perhaps, those of the
+Resurrection and of the Messiahship of Jesus; for it would be
+difficult to name any other points of doctrine on which the Nazarene
+does not differ from the Christian, and the different historical
+stages and contemporary subdivisions of Christianity from one another.
+And, if the demonology is accepted, there can be no reason for
+rejecting all those miracles in which demons play a part. The Gadarene
+story fits into the general scheme of Christianity; and the evidence
+for "Legion" and their doings is just as good as any other in the New
+Testament for the doctrine which the story illustrates.
+
+It was with the purpose of bringing this great fact into prominence;
+of getting people to open both their eyes when they look at
+Ecclesiasticism; that I devoted so much space to that miraculous story
+which happens to be one of the best types of its class. And I could
+not wish for a better justification of the course I have adopted, than
+the fact that my heroically consistent adversary has declared his
+implicit belief in the Gadarene story and (by necessary consequence)
+in the Christian demonology as a whole. It must be obvious, by this
+time, that, if the account of the spiritual world given in the New
+Testament, professedly on the authority of Jesus, is true, then the
+demonological half of that account must be just as true as the other
+half. And, therefore, those who question the demonology, or try to
+explain it away, deny the truth of what Jesus said, and are, in
+ecclesiastical terminology, "Infidels" just as much as those who deny
+the spirituality of God. This is as plain as anything can well be, and
+the dilemma for my opponent was either to assert that the Gadarene
+pig-bedevilment actually occurred, or to write himself down an
+"Infidel." As was to be expected, he chose the former alternative; and
+I may express my great satisfaction at finding that there is one spot
+of common ground on which both he and I stand. So far as I can judge,
+we are agreed to state one of the broad issues between the
+consequences of agnostic principles (as I draw them), and the
+consequences of ecclesiastical dogmatism (as he accepts it), as
+follows.
+
+Ecclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an essential
+part of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of which it
+declares to be certified by Jesus.
+
+Agnosticism (_me judice_) says: There is no good evidence of the
+existence of a demoniac spiritual world, and much reason for doubting
+it.
+
+Hereupon the ecclesiastic may observe: Your doubt means that you
+disbelieve Jesus; therefore you are an "Infidel" instead of an
+"Agnostic." To which the agnostic may reply: No; for two reasons:
+first, because your evidence that Jesus said what you say he said is
+worth very little; and secondly, because a man may be an agnostic, in
+the sense of admitting he has no positive knowledge, and yet consider
+that he has more or less probable ground for accepting any given
+hypothesis about the spiritual world. Just as a man may frankly
+declare that he has no means of knowing whether the planets generally
+are inhabited or not, and yet may think one of the two possible
+hypotheses more likely that the other, so he may admit that he has no
+means of knowing anything about the spiritual world, and yet may think
+one or other of the current views on the subject, to some extent,
+probable.
+
+The second answer is so obviously valid that it needs no discussion. I
+draw attention to it simply in justice to those agnostics who may
+attach greater value that I do to any sort of pneumatological
+speculations; and not because I wish to escape the responsibility of
+declaring that, whether Jesus sanctioned the demonological part of
+Christianity or not, I unhesitatingly reject it. The first answer, on
+the other hand, opens up the whole question of the claim of the
+biblical and other sources, from which hypotheses concerning the
+spiritual world are derived, to be regarded as unimpeachable
+historical evidence as to matters of fact.
+
+Now, in respect of the trustworthiness of the Gospel narratives, I was
+anxious to get rid of the common assumption that the determination of
+the authorship and of the dates of these works is a matter of
+fundamental importance. That assumption is based upon the notion that
+what contemporary witnesses say must be true, or, at least, has always
+a _prima facie_ claim to be so regarded; so that if the writers of any
+of the Gospels were contemporaries of the events (and still more if
+they were in the position of eye-witnesses) the miracles they narrate
+must be historically true, and, consequently, the demonology which
+they involve must be accepted. But the story of the "Translation of
+the blessed martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus," and the other
+considerations (to which endless additions might have been made from
+the Fathers and the mediaeval writers) set forth in a preceding essay,
+yield, in my judgment, satisfactory proof that, where the miraculous
+is concerned, neither considerable intellectual ability, nor undoubted
+honesty, nor knowledge of the world, nor proved faithfulness as civil
+historians, nor profound piety, on the part of eye-witnesses and
+contemporaries, affords any guarantee of the objective truth of their
+statements, when we know that a firm belief in the miraculous was
+ingrained in their minds, and was the pre-supposition of their
+observations and reasonings.
+
+Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we have no
+real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of composition of the
+Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that nothing better than
+more or less probable guesses can be arrived at on that subject, I
+have not cared to expend any space on the question. It will be
+admitted, I suppose; that the authors of the works attributed to
+Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whoever they may be, are personages
+whose capacity and judgment in the narration of ordinary events are
+not quite so well certified as those of Eginhard; and we have seen
+what the value of Eginhard's evidence is when the miraculous is in
+question.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have been careful to explain that the arguments which I have used in
+the course of this discussion are not new; that they are historical
+and have nothing to do with what is commonly called science; and that
+they are all, to the best of my belief, to be found in the works of
+theologians of repute.
+
+The position which I have taken up, that the evidence in favour of
+such miracles as those recorded by Eginhard, and consequently of
+mediaeval demonology, is quite as good as that in favour of such
+miracles as the Gadarene, and consequently of Nazarene demonology, is
+none of my discovery. Its strength was, wittingly or unwittingly,
+suggested, a century and a half ago, by a theological scholar of
+eminence; and it has been, if not exactly occupied, yet so fortified
+with bastions and redoubts by a living ecclesiastical Vauban, that, in
+my judgment, it has been rendered impregnable. In the early part of
+the last century, the ecclesiastical mind in this country was much
+exercised by the question, not exactly of miracles, the occurrence of
+which in biblical times was axiomatic, but by the problem: When did
+miracles cease? Anglican divines were quite sure that no miracles had
+happened in their day, nor for some time past; they were equally sure
+that they happened sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier. And it was
+a vital question for them to determine at what point of time, between
+this _terminus a quo_ and that _terminus ad quem_, miracles came to an
+end.
+
+The Anglicans and the Romanists agreed in the assumption that the
+possession of the gift of miracle-working was _prima facie_ evidence
+of the soundness of the faith of the miracle-workers. The supposition
+that miraculous powers might be wielded by heretics (though it might
+be supported by high authority) led to consequences too frightful to
+be entertained by people who were busied in building their dogmatic
+house on the sands of early Church history. If, as the Romanists
+maintained, an unbroken series of genuine miracles adorned the records
+of their Church, throughout the whole of its existence, no Anglican
+could lightly venture to accuse them of doctrinal corruption. Hence,
+the Anglicans, who indulged in such accusations, were bound to prove
+the modern, the mediaeval Roman, and the later Patristic miracles
+false; and to shut off the wonder-working power from the Church at
+the exact point of time when Anglican doctrine ceased and Roman
+doctrine began. With a little adjustment--a squeeze here and a pull
+there--the Christianity of the first three or four centuries might be
+made to fit, or seem to fit, pretty well into the Anglican scheme. So
+the miracles, from Justin say to Jerome, might be recognised; while,
+in later times, the Church having become "corrupt"--that is to say,
+having pursued one and the same line of development further than was
+pleasing to Anglicans--its alleged miracles must needs be shams and
+impostures.
+
+Under these circumstances, it may be imagined that the establishment
+of a scientific frontier between the earlier realm of supposed fact
+and the later of asserted delusion, had its difficulties; and torrents
+of theological special pleading about the subject flowed from clerical
+pens; until that learned and acute Anglican divine, Conyers Middleton,
+in his "Free Inquiry," tore the sophistical web they had laboriously
+woven to pieces, and demonstrated that the miracles of the patristic
+age, early and late, must stand or fall together, inasmuch as the
+evidence for the later is just as good as the evidence for the earlier
+wonders. If the one set are certified by contemporaneous witnesses of
+high repute, so are the other; and, in point of probability, there is
+not a pin to choose between the two. That is the solid and
+irrefragable, result of Middleton's contribution to the subject. But
+the Free Inquirer's freedom had its limits; and he draws a sharp line
+of demarcation between the patristic and the New Testament
+miracles--on the professed ground that the accounts of the latter,
+being inspired, are out of the reach of criticism.
+
+A century later, the question was taken up by another divine,
+Middleton's equal in learning and acuteness, and far his superior in
+subtlety and dialectic skill; who, though an Anglican, scorned the
+name of Protestant; and, while yet a Churchman, made it his business
+to parade, with infinite skill, the utter hollowness of the arguments
+of those of his brother Churchmen who dreamed that they could be both
+Anglicans and Protestants. The argument of the "Essay on the Miracles
+recorded in the Ecclesiastical History of the Early Ages"[88] by the
+present [1889] Roman Cardinal, but then Anglican Doctor, John Henry
+Newman, is compendiously stated by himself in the following passage:--
+
+     If the miracles of Church history cannot be defended by the
+     arguments of Leslie, Lyttleton, Paley, or Douglas, how many
+     of the Scripture miracles satisfy their conditions? (p. cvii).
+
+And, although the answer is not given in so many words, little doubt
+is left on the mind of the reader, that, in the mind of the writer,
+it is: None. In fact, this conclusion is one which cannot be resisted,
+if the argument in favour of the Scripture miracles is based upon that
+which laymen, whether lawyers, or men of science, or historians, or
+ordinary men of affairs, call evidence. But there is something really
+impressive in the magnificent contempt with which, at times, Dr.
+Newman sweeps aside alike those who offer and those who demand such
+evidence.
+
+     Some infidel authors advise us to accept no miracles which
+     would not have a verdict in their favour in a court of
+     justice; that is, they employ against Scripture a weapon
+     which Protestants would confine to attacks upon the Church;
+     as if moral and religious questions required legal proof,
+     and evidence were the test of truth[89] (p. cvii).
+
+"As if evidence were the test of truth"!--although the truth in
+question is the occurrence, or the non-occurrence, of certain
+phenomena at a certain time and in a certain place. This sudden
+revelation of the great gulf fixed between the ecclesiastical and the
+scientific mind is enough to take away the breath of any one
+unfamiliar with the clerical organon. As if, one may retort, the
+assumption that miracles may, or have, served a moral or a religious
+end, in any way alters the fact that they profess to be historical
+events, things that actually happened; and, as such, must needs be
+exactly those subjects about which evidence is appropriate and legal
+proofs (which are such merely because they afford adequate evidence)
+may be justly demanded. The Gadarene miracle either happened, or it
+did not. Whether the Gadarene "question" is moral or religious, or
+not, has nothing to do with the fact that it is a purely historical
+question whether the demons said what they are declared to have said,
+and the devil-possessed pigs did, or did not, rush over the heights
+bounding the Lake of Gennesaret on a certain day of a certain year,
+after A.D. 26 and before A.D. 36; for vague and uncertain as New
+Testament chronology is, I suppose it may be assumed that the event in
+question, if it happened at all, took place during the procuratorship
+of Pilate. If that is not a matter about which evidence ought to be
+required, and not only legal, but strict scientific proof demanded by
+sane men who are asked to believe the story--what is? Is a reasonable
+being to be seriously asked to credit statements which, to put the
+case gently, are not exactly probable, and on the acceptance or
+rejection of which his whole view of life may depend, without asking
+for as much "legal" proof as would send an alleged pickpocket to gaol,
+or as would suffice to prove the validity of a disputed will?
+
+"Infidel authors" (if, as I am assured, I may answer for them) will
+decline to waste time on mere darkenings of counsel of this sort; but
+to those Anglicans who accept his premises, Dr. Newman is a truly
+formidable antagonist. What, indeed, are they to reply when he puts
+the very pertinent question:--
+
+     whether persons who not merely question, but prejudge the
+     Ecclesiastical miracles on the ground of their want of
+     resemblance, whatever that be, to those contained in
+     Scripture--as if the Almighty could not do in the Christian
+     Church what He had not already done at the time of its
+     foundation, or under the Mosaic Covenant--whether such
+     reasoners are not siding with the sceptic,
+
+and
+
+     whether it is not a happy inconsistency by which they
+     continue to believe the Scriptures while they reject the
+     Church[90] (p. liii).
+
+Again, I invite Anglican orthodoxy to consider this passage:--
+
+     the narrative of the combats of St. Anthony with evil
+     spirits, is a development rather than a contradiction of
+     revelation, viz. of such texts as speak of Satan being cast
+     out by prayer and fasting. To be shocked, then, at the
+     miracles of Ecclesiastical history, or to ridicule them for
+     their strangeness, is no part of a scriptural philosophy
+     (pp. liii-liv).
+
+Further on, Dr. Newman declares that it has been admitted
+
+     that a distinct line can be drawn in point of character and
+     circumstance between the miracles of Scripture and of Church
+     history; but this is by no means the case (p. lv) ...
+     specimens are not wanting in the history of the Church, of
+     miracles as awful in their character and as momentous in
+     their effects as those which are recorded in Scripture. The
+     fire interrupting the rebuilding of the Jewish temple, and
+     the death of Arius, are instances, in Ecclesiastical
+     history, of such solemn events. On the other hand, difficult
+     instances in the Scripture history are such as these: the
+     serpent in Eden, the Ark, Jacob's vision for the
+     multiplication of his cattle, the speaking of Balaam's ass,
+     the axe swimming at Elisha's word, the miracle on the swine,
+     and various instances of prayers or prophecies, in which, as
+     in that of Noah's blessing and curse, words which seem the
+     result of private feeling are expressly or virtually
+     ascribed to a Divine suggestion (p. lvi).
+
+Who is to gainsay our ecclesiastical authority here? "Infidel authors"
+might be accused of a wish to ridicule the Scripture miracles by
+putting them on a level with the remarkable story about the fire which
+stopped the rebuilding of the Temple, or that about the death of
+Arius--but Dr. Newman is above suspicion. The pity is that his list of
+what he delicately terms "difficult" instances is so short. Why omit
+the manufacture of Eve out of Adam's rib, on the strict historical
+accuracy of which the chief argument of the defenders of an iniquitous
+portion of our present law depends? Why leave out the account of the
+"Bene Elohim" and their gallantries, on which a large part of the
+worst practices of the mediaeval inquisitors into witchcraft was based?
+Why forget the angel who wrestled with Jacob, and, as the account
+suggests, somewhat over-stepped the bounds of fair play, at the end of
+the struggle? Surely, we must agree with Dr. Newman that, if all these
+camels have gone down, it savours of affectation to strain at such
+gnats as the sudden ailment of Arius in the midst of his deadly, if
+prayerful,[91] enemies; and the fiery explosion which stopped the
+Julian building operations. Though the _words_ of the "Conclusion" of
+the "Essay on Miracles" may, perhaps, be quoted against me, I may
+express my satisfaction at finding myself in substantial accordance
+with a theologian above all suspicion of heterodoxy. With all my
+heart, I can declare my belief that there is just as good reason for
+believing in the miraculous slaying of the man who fell short of the
+Athanasian power of affirming contradictories, with respect to the
+nature of the Godhead, as there is for believing in the stories of the
+serpent and the ark told in Genesis, the speaking of Balaam's ass in
+Numbers, or the floating of the axe, at Elisha's order, in the second
+book of Kings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is one of the peculiarities of a really sound argument that it is
+susceptible of the fullest development; and that it sometimes leads to
+conclusions unexpected by those who employ it. To my mind, it is
+impossible to refuse to follow Dr. Newman when he extends his
+reasoning, from the miracles of the patristic and mediaeval ages
+backward in time, as far as miracles are recorded. But, if the rules
+of logic are valid, I feel compelled to extend the argument forwards
+to the alleged Roman miracles of the present day, which Dr. Newman
+might not have admitted, but which Cardinal Newman may hardly reject.
+Beyond question, there is as good, or perhaps better, evidence for the
+miracles worked by our Lady of Lourdes, as there is for the floating
+of Elisha's axe, or the speaking of Balaam's ass. But we must go still
+further; there is a modern system of thaumaturgy and demonology which
+is just as well certified as the ancient.[92] Veracious, excellent,
+sometimes learned and acute persons, even philosophers of no mean
+pretensions, testify to the "levitation" of bodies much heavier than
+Elisha's axe; to the existence of "spirits" who, to the mere tactile
+sense, have been indistinguishable from flesh and blood; and,
+occasionally, have wrested with all the vigour of Jacob's opponent;
+yet, further, to the speech, in the language of raps, of spiritual
+beings, whose discourses, in point of coherence and value, are far
+inferior to that of Balaam's humble but sagacious steed. I have not
+the smallest doubt that, if these were persecuting times, there is
+many a worthy "spiritualist" who would cheerfully go to the stake in
+support of his pneumatological faith; and furnish evidence, after
+Paley's own heart, in proof of the truth of his doctrines. Not a few
+modern divines, doubtless struck by the impossibility of refusing the
+spiritualist evidence, if the ecclesiastical evidence is accepted, and
+deprived of any _a priori_ objection by their implicit belief in
+Christian Demonology, show themselves ready to take poor Sludge
+seriously, and to believe that he is possessed by other devils than
+those of need, greed, and vainglory.
+
+Under these circumstances, it was to be expected, though it is none
+the less interesting to note the fact, that the arguments of the
+latest school of "spiritualists" present a wonderful family likeness
+to those which adorn the subtle disquisitions of the advocate of
+ecclesiastical miracles of forty years ago. It is unfortunate for the
+"spiritualists" that, over and over again, celebrated and trusted
+media, who really, in some respects, call to mind the Montanist[93]
+and gnostic seers of the second century, are either proved in courts
+of law to be fraudulent impostors; or, in sheer weariness, as it would
+seem, of the honest dupes who swear by them, spontaneously confess
+their long-continued iniquities, as the Fox women did the other day
+in New York.[94] But, whenever a catastrophe of this kind takes place,
+the believers are no wise dismayed by it. They freely admit that not
+only the media, but the spirits whom they summon, are sadly apt to
+lose sight of the elementary principles of right and wrong; and they
+triumphantly ask: How does the occurrence of occasional impostures
+disprove the genuine manifestations (that is to say, all those which
+have not yet been proved to be impostures or delusions)? And, in this,
+they unconsciously plagiarise from the churchman, who just as freely
+admits that many ecclesiastical miracles may have been forged; and
+asks, with calm contempt, not only of legal proofs, but of
+common-sense probability, Why does it follow that none are to be
+supposed genuine? I must say, however, that the spiritualists, so far
+as I know, do not venture to outrage right reason so boldly as the
+ecclesiastics. They do not sneer at "evidence"; nor repudiate the
+requirement of legal proofs. In fact, there can be no doubt that the
+spiritualists produce better evidence for their manifestations than
+can be shown either for the miraculous death of Arius, or for the
+Invention of the Cross.[95]
+
+From the "levitation" of the axe at one end of a period of near three
+thousand years to the "levitation" of Sludge & Co. at the other end,
+there is a complete continuity of the miraculous, with every gradation,
+from the childish to the stupendous, from the gratification of a
+caprice to the illustration of sublime truth. There is no drawing a
+line in the series that might be set out of plausibly attested cases
+of spiritual intervention. If one is true, all may be true; if one is
+false, all may be false.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This is, to my mind, the inevitable result of that method of reasoning
+which is applied to the confutation of Protestantism, with so much
+success, by one of the acutest and subtlest disputants who have ever
+championed Ecclesiasticism--and one cannot put his claims to acuteness
+and subtlety higher.
+
+     ... the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If
+     ever there were a safe truth it is this.... "To be deep in
+     history is to cease to be a Protestant."[96]
+
+I have not a shadow of doubt that these anti-Protestant epigrams are
+profoundly true. But I have as little that, in the same sense, the
+"Christianity of history is not" Romanism; and that to be deeper in
+history is to cease to be a Romanist. The reasons which compel my
+doubts about the compatibility of the Roman doctrine, or any other
+form of Catholicism, with history, arise out of exactly the same line
+of argument as that adopted by Dr. Newman in the famous essay which I
+have just cited. If, with one hand, Dr. Newman has destroyed
+Protestantism, he has annihilated Romanism with the other; and the
+total result of his ambidextral efforts is to shake Christianity to
+its foundations. Nor was any one better aware that this must be the
+inevitable result of his arguments--if the world should refuse to
+accept Roman doctrines and Roman miracles--than the writer of Tract
+85.
+
+Dr. Newman made his choice and passed over to the Roman Church half a
+century ago. Some of those who were essentially in harmony with his
+views preceded, and many followed him. But many remained; and, as the
+quondam Puseyite and present Ritualistic party, they are continuing
+that work of sapping and mining the Protestantism of the Anglican
+Church which he and his friends so ably commenced. At the present
+time, they have no little claim to be considered victorious all along
+the line. I am old enough to recollect the small beginnings of the
+Tractarian party; and I am amazed when I consider the present position
+of their heirs. Their little leaven has leavened if not the whole,
+yet a very large lump of the Anglican Church; which is now pretty much
+of a preparatory school for Papistry. So that it really behoves
+Englishmen (who, as I have been informed by high authority, are all
+legally, members of the State Church, if they profess to belong to no
+other sect) to wake up to what that powerful organization is about,
+and whither it is tending. On this point, the writings of Dr. Newman,
+while he still remained within the Anglican fold, are a vast store of
+the best and the most authoritative information. His doctrines on
+Ecclesiastical miracles and on Development are the corner-stones of
+the Tractarian fabric. He believed that his arguments led either
+Romeward, or to what ecclesiastics call "Infidelity," and I call
+Agnosticism. I believe that he was quite right in this conviction; but
+while he chooses the one alternative, I choose the other; as he
+rejects Protestantism on the ground of its incompatibility with
+history, so, _a fortiori_, I conceive that Romanism ought to be
+rejected; and that an impartial consideration of the evidence must
+refuse the authority of Jesus to anything more than the Nazarenism of
+James and Peter and John. And let it not be supposed that this is a
+mere "infidel" perversion of the facts. No one has more openly and
+clearly admitted the possibility that they may be fairly interpreted
+in this way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, there are texts which seem
+to show that Jesus contemplated the evangelisation of the heathen:
+
+     ... Did not the Apostles hear our Lord? and what was _their_
+     impression from what they heard? Is it not certain that the
+     Apostles did not gather this truth from His teaching? (Tract
+     85, p. 63).
+
+     He said, "Preach the Gospel to every creature." These words
+     _need_ have only meant "Bring all men to Christianity
+     through Judaism." Make them Jews, that they may enjoy
+     Christ's privileges, which are lodged in Judaism; teach them
+     those rites and ceremonies, circumcision and the like, which
+     hitherto have been dead ordinances, and now are living; and
+     so the Apostles seem to have understood them (_ibid_. p.
+     65).
+
+So far as Nazarenism differentiated itself from contemporary orthodox
+Judaism, it seems to have tended towards a revival of the ethical and
+religious spirit of the prophetic age, accompanied by the belief in
+Jesus as the Messiah, and by various accretions which had grown round
+Judaism subsequently to the exile. To these belong the doctrines of
+the Resurrection, of the Last Judgment, of Heaven and Hell; of the
+hierarchy of good angels; of Satan and the hierarchy of evil spirits.
+And there is very strong ground for believing that all these
+doctrines, at least in the shapes in which they were held by the
+post-exilic Jews, were derived from Persian and Babylonian[97]
+sources, and are essentially of heathen origin.
+
+How far Jesus positively sanctioned all these indrainings of
+circumjacent Paganism into Judaism; how far any one has a right to
+declare, that the refusal to accept one or other of these doctrines,
+as ascertained verities, comes to the same thing as contradicting
+Jesus, it appears to me not easy to say. But it is hardly less
+difficult to conceive that he could have distinctly negatived any of
+them; and, more especially, that demonology which has been accepted by
+the Christian Churches, in every age and under all their mutual
+antagonisms. But, I repeat my conviction that, whether Jesus
+sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation or not, it is doomed.
+The future of Christianity, as a dogmatic system and apart from the
+old Israelitish ethics which it has appropriated and developed, lies
+in the answer which mankind will eventually give to the question,
+whether they are prepared to believe such stories as the Gadarene and
+the pneumatological hypotheses which go with it, or not. My belief is
+they will decline to do anything of the sort, whenever and wherever
+their minds have been disciplined by science. And that discipline
+must, and will, at once follow and lead the footsteps of advancing
+civilisation.
+
+The preceding pages were written before I became acquainted with the
+contents of the May number of the "Nineteenth Century," wherein I
+discover many things which are decidedly not to my advantage. It would
+appear that "evasion" is my chief resource, "incapacity for strict
+argument" and "rottenness of ratiocination" my main mental
+characteristics, and that it is "barely credible" that a statement
+which I profess to make of my own knowledge is true. All which things
+I notice, merely to illustrate the great truth, forced on me by long
+experience, that it is only from those who enjoy the blessing of a
+firm hold of the Christian faith that such manifestations of meekness,
+patience, and charity are to be expected.
+
+I had imagined that no one who had read my preceding papers, could
+entertain a doubt as to my position in respect of the main issue, as
+it has been stated and restated by my opponent:
+
+     an Agnosticism which knows nothing of the relation of man to
+     God must not only refuse belief to our Lord's most undoubted
+     teaching, but must deny the reality of the spiritual
+     convictions in which He lived.[98]
+
+That is said to be "the simple question which is at issue between us,"
+and the three testimonies to that teaching and those convictions
+selected are the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, and the Story
+of the Passion.
+
+My answer, reduced to its briefest form, has been: In the first
+place, the evidence is such that the exact nature of the teachings and
+the convictions of Jesus is extremely uncertain; so that what
+ecclesiastics are pleased to call a denial of them may be nothing of
+the kind. And, in the second place, if Jesus taught the demonological
+system involved in the Gadarene story--if a belief in that system
+formed a part of the spiritual convictions in which he lived and
+died--then I, for my part, unhesitatingly refuse belief in that
+teaching, and deny the reality of those spiritual convictions. And I
+go further and add, that, exactly in so far as it can be proved that
+Jesus sanctioned the essentially pagan demonological theories current
+among the Jews of his age, exactly in so far, for me, will his
+authority in any matter touching the spiritual world be weakened.
+
+With respect to the first half of my answer, I have pointed out that
+the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the first Gospel, is, in the
+opinion of the best critics, a "mosaic work" of materials derived from
+different sources, and I do not understand that this statement is
+challenged. The only other Gospel--the third--which contains something
+like it, makes, not only the discourse, but the circumstances under
+which it was delivered, very different. Now, it is one thing to say
+that there was something real at the bottom of the two discourses--which
+is quite possible; and another to affirm that we have any right to
+say what that something was, or to fix upon any particular phrase and
+declare it to be a genuine utterance. Those who pursue theology as a
+science, and bring to the study an adequate knowledge of the ways of
+ancient historians, will find no difficulty in providing illustrations
+of my meaning. I may supply one which has come within range of my own
+limited vision.
+
+In Josephus's "History of the Wars of the Jews" (chap, xix.), that
+writer reports a speech which he says Herod made at the opening of a
+war with the Arabians. It is in the first person, and would naturally
+be supposed by the reader to be intended for a true version of what
+Herod said. In the "Antiquities," written some seventeen years later,
+the same writer gives another report, also in the first person, of
+Herod's speech on the same occasion. This second oration is twice as
+long as the first and, though the general tenor of the two speeches is
+pretty much the same, there is hardly any verbal identity, and a good
+deal of matter is introduced into the one, which is absent from the
+other. Josephus prides himself on his accuracy; people whose fathers
+might have heard Herod's oration were his contemporaries; and yet his
+historical sense is so curiously undeveloped that he can, quite
+innocently, perpetrate an obvious literary fabrication; for one of the
+two accounts must be incorrect. Now, if I am asked whether I believe
+that Herod made some particular statement on this occasion; whether,
+for example, he uttered the pious aphorism, "Where God is, there is
+both multitude and courage," which is given in the "Antiquities," but
+not in the "Wars," I am compelled to say I do not know. One of the two
+reports must be erroneous, possibly both are: at any rate, I cannot
+tell how much of either is true. And, if some fervent admirer of the
+Idumean should build up a theory of Herod's piety upon Josephus's
+evidence that he propounded the aphorism, it is a "mere evasion" to
+say, in reply, that the evidence that he did utter it is worthless?
+
+It appears again that, adopting the tactics of Conachar when brought
+face to face with Hal o' the Wynd, I have been trying to get my
+simple-minded adversary to follow me on a wild-goose chase through the
+early history of Christianity, in the hope of escaping impending
+defeat on the main issue. But I may be permitted to point out that
+there is an alternative hypothesis which equally fits the facts; and
+that, after all, there may have been method in the madness of my
+supposed panic.
+
+For suppose it to be established that Gentile Christianity was a
+totally different thing from the Nazarenism of Jesus and his immediate
+disciples; suppose it to be demonstrable that, as early as the sixth
+decade of our era at least, there were violent divergencies of opinion
+among the followers of Jesus; suppose it to be hardly doubtful that
+the Gospels and the Acts took their present shapes under the influence
+of those divergencies; suppose that their authors, and those through
+whose hands they passed, had notions of historical veracity not more
+eccentric than those which Josephus occasionally displays: surely the
+chances that the Gospels are altogether trustworthy records of the
+teachings of Jesus become very slender. And, since the whole of the
+case of the other side is based on the supposition that they are
+accurate records (especially of speeches, about which ancient
+historians are so curiously loose), I really do venture to submit that
+this part of my argument bears very seriously on the main issue; and,
+as ratiocination, is sound to the core.
+
+Again, when I passed by the topic of the speeches of Jesus on the
+Cross, it appears that I could have had no other motive than the
+dictates of my native evasiveness. An ecclesiastical dignitary may
+have respectable reasons for declining a fencing match "in sight of
+Gethsemane and Calvary"; but an ecclesiastical "Infidel"! Never. It is
+obviously impossible that in the belief that "the greater includes the
+less," I, having declared the Gospel evidence in general, as to the
+sayings of Jesus, to be of questionable value, thought it needless to
+select for illustration of my views, those particular instances which
+were likely to be most offensive to persons of another way of
+thinking. But any supposition that may have been entertained that the
+old familiar tones of the ecclesiastical war-drum will tempt me to
+engage in such needless discussion had better be renounced. I shall do
+nothing of the kind. Let it suffice that I ask my readers to turn to
+the twenty-third chapter of Luke (revised version), verse thirty-four,
+and he will find in the margin
+
+     Some ancient authorities omit: And Jesus said "Father,
+     forgive them, for they know not what they do."
+
+So that, even as late as the fourth century, there were ancient
+authorities, indeed some of the most ancient and weightiest, who
+either did not know of this utterance, so often quoted as
+characteristic of Jesus, or did not believe it had been uttered.
+
+Many years ago, I received an anonymous letter, which abused me
+heartily for my want of moral courage in not speaking out. I thought
+that one of the oddest charges an anonymous letter-writer could bring.
+But I am not sure that the plentiful sowing of the pages of the
+article with which I am dealing with accusations of evasion, may not
+seem odder to those who consider that the main strength of the answers
+with which I have been favoured (in this review and elsewhere) is
+devoted not to anything in the text of my first paper, but to a note
+which occurs at p. 212. In this I say:
+
+     Dr. Wace tells us: "It may be asked how far we can rely on
+     the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on these
+     subjects." And he seems to think the question appropriately
+     answered by the assertion that it "ought to be regarded as
+     settled by M. Renan's practical surrender of the adverse
+     case."
+
+I requested Dr. Wace to point out the passages of M. Renan's works in
+which, as he affirms, this "practical surrender" (not merely as to the
+age and authorship of the Gospels, be it observed, but as to their
+historical value) is made, and he has been so good as to do so. Now
+let us consider the parts of Dr. Wace's citation from Renan which are
+relevant to the issue:--
+
+     The author of this Gospel [Luke] is certainly the same as
+     the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now the author of
+     the Acts seems to be a companion of St. Paul--a character
+     which accords completely with St. Luke. I know that more
+     than one objection may be opposed to this reasoning: but one
+     thing, at all events, is beyond doubt, namely, that the
+     author of the third Gospel and of the Acts is a man who
+     belonged to the second apostolic generation; and this
+     suffices for our purpose.
+
+This is a curious "practical surrender of the adverse case." M. Renan
+thinks that there is no doubt that the author of the third Gospel is
+the author of the Acts--a conclusion in which I suppose critics
+generally agree. He goes on to remark that this person _seems_ to be a
+companion of St. Paul, and adds that Luke was a companion of St. Paul.
+Then, somewhat needlessly, M. Renan points out that there is more than
+one objection to jumping, from such data as these, to the conclusion
+that "Luke" is the writer of the third Gospel. And, finally, M. Renan
+is content to reduce that which is "beyond doubt" to the fact that the
+author of the two books is a man of the second apostolic generation.
+Well, it seems to me that I could agree with all that M. Renan
+considers "beyond doubt" here, without surrendering anything, either
+"practically" or theoretically.
+
+Dr. Wace ("Nineteenth Century," March, p. 363) states that he derives
+the above citation from the preface to the 15th edition of the "Vie de
+Jesus." My copy of "Les Evangiles," dated 1877, contains a list of
+Renan's "Oeuvres Completes," at the head of which I find "Vie de
+Jesus," 15^e edition. It is, therefore, a later work than the edition
+of the "Vie de Jesus" which Dr. Wace quotes. Now "Les Evangiles," as
+its name implies, treats fully of the questions respecting the date
+and authorship of the Gospels; and any one who desired, not merely to
+use M. Renan's expressions for controversial purposes, but to give a
+fair account of his views in their full significance, would, I think,
+refer to the later source.
+
+If this course had been taken, Dr. Wace might have found some as
+decided expressions of opinion, in favour of Luke's authorship of the
+third Gospel, as he has discovered in "The Apostles." I mention this
+circumstance, because I desire to point out that, taking even the
+strongest of Renan's statements, I am still at a loss to see how it
+justifies that large-sounding phrase, "practical surrender of the
+adverse case." For, on p. 438 of "Les Evangiles," Renan speaks of the
+way in which Luke's "excellent intentions" have led him to torture
+history in the Acts; he declares Luke to be the founder of that
+"eternal fiction which is called ecclesiastical history"; and, on the
+preceding page, he talks of the "myth" of the Ascension--with its
+"_mise en scene voulue_." At p. 435, I find "Luc, ou l'auteur quel
+qu'il soit du troisieme Evangile"; at p. 280, the accounts of the
+Passion, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, are said to be "peu
+historiques"; at p. 283, "La valeur historique du troisieme Evangile
+est surement moindre que celles des deux premiers." A Pyrrhic sort of
+victory for orthodoxy, this "surrender"! And, all the while, the
+scientific student of theology knows that, the more reason there may
+be to believe that Luke was the companion of Paul, the more doubtful
+becomes his credibility if he really wrote the Acts. For, in that
+case, he could not fail to have been acquainted with Paul's account of
+the Jerusalem conference and he must have consciously misrepresented
+it.
+
+We may next turn to the essential part of Dr. Wace's citation
+("Nineteenth Century," p. 365) touching the first Gospel:--
+
+     St. Matthew evidently deserves peculiar confidence for the
+     discourses. Here are the "oracles"--the very notes taken
+     while the memory of the instruction of Jesus was living and
+     definite.
+
+M. Renan here expresses the very general opinion as to the existence
+of a collection of "logia," having a different origin from the text in
+which they are embedded, in Matthew. "Notes" are somewhat suggestive
+of a shorthand writer, but the suggestion is unintentional, for M.
+Renan assumes that these "notes" were taken, not at the time of the
+delivery of the "logia" but subsequently, while (as he assumes) the
+memory of them was living and definite; so that, in this very
+citation, M. Renan leaves open the question of the general historical
+value of the first Gospel; while it is obvious that the accuracy of
+"Notes" taken, not at the time of delivery, but from memory, is a
+matter about which more than one opinion may be fairly held. Moreover,
+Renan expressly calls attention to the difficulty of distinguishing
+the authentic "logia" from later additions of the same kind ("Les
+Evangiles," p. 201). The fact is, there is no contradiction here to
+that opinion about the first Gospel which is expressed in "Les
+Evangiles" (p. 175).
+
+     The text of the so-called Matthew supposes the pre-existence
+     of that of Mark, and does little more than complete it. He
+     completes it in two fashions--first, by the insertion of
+     those long discourses which gave their chief value to the
+     Hebrew Gospels; then by adding traditions of a more modern
+     formation, results of successive developments of the legend,
+     and to which the Christian consciousness already attached
+     infinite value.
+
+M. Renan goes on to suggest that besides "Mark," "pseudo-Matthew"
+used an Aramaic version of the Gospel, originally set forth in that
+dialect. Finally, as to the second Gospel ("Nineteenth Century," p.
+365):--
+
+     He [Mark] is full of minute observations, proceeding, beyond
+     doubt, from an eye-witness. There is nothing to conflict
+     with the supposition that this eye-witness ... was the
+     Apostle Peter himself, as Papias has it.
+
+Let us consider this citation by the light of "Les Evangiles":--
+
+     This work, although composed after the death of Peter, was,
+     in a sense, the work of Peter; it represents the way in
+     which Peter was accustomed to relate the life of Jesus (p.
+     116).
+
+M. Renan goes on to say that, as an historical document, the Gospel of
+Mark has a great superiority (p. 116); but Mark has a motive for
+omitting the discourses, and he attaches a "puerile importance" to
+miracles (p. 117). The Gospel of Mark is less a legend, than a
+biography written with credulity (p. 118). It would be rash to say
+that Mark has not been interpolated and retouched (p. 120).
+
+If any one thinks that I have not been warranted in drawing a sharp
+distinction between "scientific theologians" and "counsels for
+creeds"; or that my warning against the too ready acceptance of
+certain declarations as to the state of biblical criticism was
+needless; or that my anxiety as to the sense of the word "practical"
+was superfluous; let him compare the statement that M. Renan has made
+a "practical surrender of the adverse case" with the facts just set
+forth. For what is the adverse case? The question, as Dr. Wace puts
+it, is, "It may be asked how far can we rely on the accounts we
+possess of our Lord's teaching on these subjects." It will be obvious
+that M. Renan's statements amount to an adverse answer--to a
+"practical" denial that any great reliance can be placed on these
+accounts. He does not believe that Matthew, the apostle, wrote the
+first Gospel; he does not profess to know who is responsible for the
+collection of "logia," or how many of them are authentic; though he
+calls the second Gospel the most historical, he points out that it is
+written with credulity, and may have been interpolated and retouched;
+and, as to the author, "quel qu'il soit," of the third Gospel, who is
+to "rely on the accounts" of a writer, who deserves the cavalier
+treatment which "Luke" meets with at M. Renan's hands.
+
+I repeat what I have already more than once said, that the question of
+the age and the authorship of the Gospels has not, in my judgment, the
+importance which is so commonly assigned to it; for the simple reason
+that the reports, even of eye-witnesses, would not suffice to justify
+belief in a large and essential part of their contents; on the
+contrary, these reports would discredit the witnesses. The Gadarene
+miracle, for example, is so extremely improbable, that the fact of its
+being reported by three, even independent, authorities could not
+justify belief in it, unless we had the clearest evidence as to their
+capacity as observers and as interpreters of their observations. But
+it is evident that the three authorities are not independent; that
+they have simply adopted a legend, of which there were two versions;
+and instead of their proving its truth, it suggests their
+superstitious credulity: so that if "Matthew," "Mark," and "Luke" are
+really responsible for the Gospels, it is not the better for the
+Gadarene story, but the worse for them.
+
+A wonderful amount of controversial capital has been made out of my
+assertion in the note to which I have referred, as an _obiter dictum_
+of no consequence to my argument, that if Renan's work[99] were
+non-extant, the main results of biblical criticism, as set forth in
+the works of Strauss, Baur, Reuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not
+be sensibly affected. I thought I had explained it satisfactorily
+already, but it seems that my explanation has only exhibited still
+more of my native perversity, so I ask for one more chance.
+
+In the course of the historical development of any branch of science,
+what is universally observed is this: that the men who make epochs,
+and are the real architects of the fabric of exact knowledge, are
+those who introduce fruitful ideas or methods. As a rule, the man who
+does this pushes his idea, or his method, too far; or, if he does not,
+his school is sure to do so; and those who follow have to reduce his
+work to its proper value, and assign it its place in the whole. Not
+unfrequently, they, in their turn, overdo the critical process, and,
+in trying to eliminate error, throw away truth.
+
+Thus, as I said, Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, Lamarck, really "set forth
+the results" of a developing science, although they often heartily
+contradict one another. Notwithstanding this circumstance, modern
+classificatory method and nomenclature have largely grown out of the
+work of Linnaeus; the modern conception of biology, as a science, and
+of its relation to climatology, geography, and geology, are, as
+largely, rooted in the results of the labours of Buffon; comparative
+anatomy and palaeontology owe a vast debt to Cuvier's results; while
+invertebrate zoology and the revival of the idea of evolution are
+intimately dependent on the results of the work of Lamarck. In other
+words, the main results of biology up to the early years of this
+century are to be found in, or spring out of, the works of these men.
+
+So, if I mistake not, Strauss, if he did not originate the idea of
+taking the mythopoeic faculty into account in the development of the
+Gospel narratives, and though he may have exaggerated the influence of
+that faculty, obliged scientific theology, hereafter, to take that
+element into serious consideration; so Baur, in giving prominence to
+the cardinal fact of the divergence of the Nazarene and Pauline
+tendencies in the primitive Church; so Reuss, in setting a marvellous
+example of the cool and dispassionate application of the principles of
+scientific criticism over the whole field of Scripture; so Volkmar, in
+his clear and forcible statement of the Nazarene limitations of Jesus,
+contributed results of permanent value in scientific theology. I took
+these names as they occurred to me. Undoubtedly, I might have
+advantageously added to them; perhaps, I might have made a better
+selection. But it really is absurd to try to make out that I did not
+know that these writers widely disagree; and I believe that no
+scientific theologian will deny that, in principle, what I have said
+is perfectly correct. Ecclesiastical advocates, of course, cannot be
+expected to take this view of the matter. To them, these mere seekers
+after truth, in so far as their results are unfavourable to the creed
+the clerics have to support, are more or less "infidels," or favourers
+of "infidelity"; and the only thing they care to see, or probably can
+see, is the fact that, in a great many matters, the truth-seekers
+differ from one another, and therefore can easily be exhibited to the
+public, as if they did nothing else; as if any one who referred to
+their having, each and all, contributed his share to the results of
+theological science, was merely showing his ignorance; and as if a
+charge of inconsistency could be based on the fact that he himself
+often disagrees with what they say. I have never lent a shadow of
+foundation to the assumption that I am a follower of either Strauss,
+or Baur, or Reuss, or Volkmar, or Renan; my debts to these eminent
+men--so far my superiors in theological knowledge--is, indeed, great;
+yet it is not for their opinions, but for those I have been able to
+form for myself, by their help.
+
+In _Agnosticism: a Rejoinder_ (p. 266), I have referred to the
+difficulties under which those professors of the science of theology,
+whose tenure of their posts depends on the results of their
+investigations, must labour; and, in a note, I add--
+
+     Imagine that all our chairs of Astronomy had been founded in
+     the fourteenth century, and that their incumbents were bound
+     to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with every respect
+     for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and
+     expound the truth, I think men of common sense would go
+     elsewhere to learn astronomy.
+
+I did not write this paragraph without a knowledge that its sense
+would be open to the kind of perversion which it has suffered; but, if
+that was clear, the necessity for the statement was still clearer. It
+is my deliberate opinion: I reiterate it; and I say that, in my
+judgment, it is extremely inexpedient that any subject which calls
+itself a science should be intrusted to teachers who are debarred from
+freely following out scientific methods to their legitimate
+conclusions, whatever those conclusions may be. If I may borrow a
+phrase paraded at the Church Congress, I think it "ought to be
+unpleasant" for any man of science to find himself in the position of
+such a teacher.
+
+Human nature is not altered by seating it in a professorial chair,
+even of theology. I have very little doubt that if, in the year 1859,
+the tenure of my office had depended upon my adherence to the
+doctrines of Cuvier, the objections to them set forth in the "Origin
+of Species" would have had a halo of gravity about them that, being
+free to teach what I pleased, I failed to discover. And, in making
+that statement, it does not appear to me that I am confessing that I
+should have been debarred by "selfish interests" from making candid
+inquiry, or that I should have been biassed by "sordid motives." I
+hope that even such a fragment of moral sense as may remain in an
+ecclesiastical "infidel" might have got me through the difficulty; but
+it would be unworthy to deny, or disguise, the fact that a very
+serious difficulty must have been created for me by the nature of my
+tenure. And let it be observed that the temptation, in my case, would
+have been far slighter than in that of a professor of theology;
+whatever biological doctrine I had repudiated, nobody I cared for
+would have thought the worse of me for so doing. No scientific
+journals would have howled me down, as the religious newspapers howled
+down my too honest friend, the late Bishop of Natal; nor would my
+colleagues of the Royal Society have turned their backs upon me, as
+his episcopal colleagues boycotted him.
+
+I say these facts are obvious, and that it is wholesome and needful
+that they should be stated. It is in the interests of theology, if it
+be a science, and it is in the interests of those teachers of theology
+who desire to be something better than counsel for creeds, that it
+should be taken to heart. The seeker after theological truth and that
+only, will no more suppose that I have insulted him, than the prisoner
+who works in fetters will try to pick a quarrel with me, if I suggest
+that he would get on better if the fetters were knocked off: unless
+indeed, as it is said does happen in the course of long captivities,
+that the victim at length ceases to feel the weight of his chains, or
+even takes to hugging them, as if they were honourable ornaments.[100]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [81] The substance of a paragraph which precedes this has
+          been transferred to the Prologue.
+
+     [82] I confess that, long ago, I once or twice made this
+          mistake; even to the waste of a capital 'U.' 1893.
+
+     [83] "Let us maintain, before we have proved. This seeming
+          paradox is the secret of happiness" (Dr. Newman: Tract
+          85, p. 85).
+
+     [84] Dr. Newman, _Essay on Development_, p. 357.
+
+     [85] It is by no means to be assumed that "spiritual" and
+          "corporeal" are exact equivalents of "immaterial" and
+          "material" in the minds of ancient speculators on
+          these topics. The "spiritual body" of the risen dead
+          (1 Cor. xv.) is not the "natural" "flesh and blood"
+          body. Paul does not teach the resurrection of the body
+          in the ordinary sense of the word "body"; a fact,
+          often overlooked, but pregnant with many consequences.
+
+     [86] Tertullian (_Apolog. Adv. Gentes_, cap. xxiii) thus
+          challenges the Roman authorities: let them bring a
+          possessed person into the presence of a Christian
+          before their tribunal, and if the demon does not
+          confess himself to be such, on the order of the
+          Christian, let the Christian be executed out of hand.
+
+     [87] See the expression of orthodox opinion upon the
+          "accommodation" subterfuge already cited above, p. 217.
+
+     [88] I quote the first edition (1843). A second edition
+          appeared in 1870. Tract 85 of the _Tracts for the
+          Times_ should be read with this _Essay_. If I were
+          called upon to compile a Primer of "Infidelity," I
+          think I should save myself trouble by making a
+          selection from these works, and from the _Essay on
+          Development_ by the same author.
+
+     [89] Yet, when it suits his purpose, as in the Introduction
+          to the _Essay on Development_, Dr. Newman can demand
+          strict evidence in religious questions as sharply as
+          any "infidel author;" and he can even profess to yield
+          to its force (_Essay on Miracles_, 1870; note, p. 391).
+
+     [90] Compare Tract 85, p. 110; "I am persuaded that were men
+          but consistent who oppose the Church doctrines as being
+          unscriptural, they would vindicate the Jews for
+          rejecting the Gospel."
+
+     [91] According to Dr. Newman, "This prayer [that of Bishop
+          Alexander, who begged God to 'take Arius away'] is said
+          to have been offered about 3 P.M. on the Saturday; that
+          same evening Arius was in the great square of
+          Constantine, when he was suddenly seized with
+          indisposition" (p. clxx). The "infidel" Gibbon seems to
+          have dared to suggest that "an option between poison
+          and miracle" is presented by this case; and it must be
+          admitted, that, if the Bishop had been within the reach
+          of a modern police magistrate, things might have gone
+          hardly with him. Modern "Infidels," possessed of a
+          slight knowledge of chemistry, are not unlikely, with
+          no less audacity, to suggest an "option between
+          fire-damp and miracle" in seeking for the cause of the
+          fiery outburst at Jerusalem.
+
+     [92] A writer in a spiritualist journal takes me roundly
+          to task for venturing to doubt the historical and
+          literal truth of the Gadarene story. The following
+          passage in his letter is worth quotation: "Now to the
+          materialistic and scientific mind, to the uninitiated
+          in spiritual verities, certainly this story of the
+          Gadarene or Gergesene swine presents insurmountable
+          difficulties; it seems grotesque and nonsensical. To
+          the experienced, trained, and cultivated Spiritualist
+          this miracle is, as I am prepared to show, one of the
+          most instructive, the most profoundly useful, and the
+          most beneficent which Jesus ever wrought in the whole
+          course of His pilgrimage of redemption on earth." Just
+          so. And the first page of this same journal presents
+          the following advertisement, among others of the same
+          kidney:
+
+          "To WEALTHY SPIRITUALISTS--A Lady Medium of tried power
+          wishes to meet with an elderly gentleman who would be
+          willing to give her a comfortable home and maintenance
+          in Exchange for her Spiritualistic services, as her
+          guides consider her health is too delicate for public
+          sittings: London preferred.--Address 'Mary,' Office of
+          _Light_."
+
+          Are we going back to the days of the Judges, when
+          wealthy Micah set up his private ephod, teraphim, and
+          Levite?
+
+     [93] Consider Tertullian's "sister" ("hodie apud nos"),
+          who conversed with angels, saw and heard mysteries,
+          knew men's thoughts, and prescribed medicine for their
+          bodies (_De Anima_, cap. 9). Tertullian tells us that
+          this woman saw the soul as corporeal, and described its
+          colour and shape. The "infidel" will probably be unable
+          to refrain from insulting the memory of the ecstatic
+          saint by the remark, that Tertullian's known views
+          about the corporeality of the soul may have had
+          something to do with the remarkable perceptive powers
+          of the Montanist medium, in whose revelations of the
+          spiritual world he took such profound interest.
+
+     [94] See the New York _World_ for Sunday, 21st October,
+          1888; and the _Report of the Seybert Commission_,
+          Philadelphia, 1887.
+
+     [95] Dr. Newman's observation that the miraculous
+          multiplication of the pieces of the true cross (with
+          which "the whole world is filled," according to Cyril
+          of Jerusalem; and of which some say there are enough
+          extant to build a man-of-war) is no more wonderful
+          than that of the loaves and fishes, is one that I do
+          not see my way to contradict. See _Essay on Miracles_.
+          2d ed. p. 163.
+
+     [96] _An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_,
+          by J.H. Newman, D.D., pp. 7 and 8. (1878.)
+
+     [97] Dr. Newman faces this question with his customary
+          ability. "Now, I own, I am not at all solicitous to
+          deny that this doctrine of an apostate Angel and his
+          hosts was gained from Babylon: it might still be
+          Divine nevertheless. God who made the prophet's ass
+          speak, and thereby instructed the prophet, might
+          instruct His Church by means of heathen Babylon"
+          (Tract 85, p. 83). There seems to be no end to the
+          apologetic burden that Balaam's ass may carry.
+
+     [98] _Nineteenth Century_, May 1889 (p. 701).
+
+     [99] I trust it may not be supposed that I undervalue M.
+          Renan's labours, or intended to speak slightingly of
+          them.
+
+    [100] To-day's _Times_ contains a report of a remarkable
+          speech by Prince Bismarck, in which he tells the
+          Reichstag that he has long given up investing in
+          foreign stock, lest so doing should mislead his
+          judgment in his transactions with foreign states. Does
+          this declaration prove that the Chancellor accuses
+          himself of being "sordid" and "selfish"; or does it not
+          rather show that, even in dealing with himself, he
+          remains the man of realities?
+
+
+
+
+X: THE KEEPERS OF THE HERD OF SWINE
+
+[1890]
+
+
+I had fondly hoped that Mr. Gladstone and I had come to an end of
+disputation, and that the hatchet of war was finally superseded by the
+calumet, which, as Mr. Gladstone, I believe, objects to tobacco, I was
+quite willing to smoke for both. But I have had, once again, to
+discover that the adage that whoso seeks peace will ensue it, is a
+somewhat hasty generalisation. The renowned warrior with whom it is my
+misfortune to be opposed in most things has dug up the axe and is on
+the war-path once more. The weapon has been wielded with all the
+dexterity which long practice has conferred on a past master in craft,
+whether of wood or state. And I have reason to believe that the
+simpler sort of the great tribe which he heads, imagine that my scalp
+is already on its way to adorn their big chief's wigwam. I am glad
+therefore to be able to relieve any anxieties which my friends may
+entertain without delay. I assure them that my skull retains its
+normal covering, and that though, naturally, I may have felt alarmed,
+nothing serious has happened. My doughty adversary has merely
+performed a war dance, and his blows have for the most part cut the
+air. I regret to add, however, that by misadventure, and I am afraid I
+must say carelessness, he has inflicted one or two severe contusions
+on himself.
+
+When the noise of approaching battle roused me from the dreams of
+peace which occupy my retirement, I was glad to observe (since I must
+fight) that the campaign was to be opened upon a new field. When the
+contest raged over the Pentateuchal myth of the creation, Mr.
+Gladstone's manifest want of acquaintance with the facts and
+principles involved in the discussion, no less than with the best
+literature on his own side of the subject, gave me the uncomfortable
+feeling that I had my adversary at a disadvantage. The sun of science,
+at my back, was in his eyes. But, on the present occasion, we are
+happily on an equality. History and Biblical criticism are as much, or
+as little, my vocation as they are that of Mr. Gladstone; the blinding
+from too much light, or the blindness from too little, may be presumed
+to be equally shared by both of us.
+
+Mr. Gladstone takes up his new position in the country of the
+Gadarenes. His strategic sense justly leads him to see that the
+authority of the teachings of the synoptic Gospels, touching the
+nature of the spiritual world, turns upon the acceptance, or the
+rejection, of the Gadarene and other like stories. As we accept, or
+repudiate, such histories as that of the possessed pigs, so shall we
+accept, or reject, the witness of the synoptics to such miraculous
+interventions.
+
+It is exactly because these stories constitute the key-stone of the
+orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite
+of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for
+compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be
+thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware
+that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated
+as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in
+their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully set forth in that
+work. But the warmest admirers of Mr. Gladstone will hardly be
+prepared to maintain that mathematical accuracy in stating the
+opinions of an opponent is the most prominent feature of his
+controversial method. And what follows will show that, in the present
+case, the desire to be fair and accurate, the existence of which I am
+bound to assume, has not borne as much fruit as might have been
+expected.
+
+In referring to the statement of the narrators, that the herd of
+swine perished in consequence of the entrance into them of the demons
+by the permission, or order, of Jesus of Nazareth, I said:
+
+"Everything that I know of law and justice convinces me that the
+wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
+evil example" ("Nineteenth Century," February, 1889, p. 172).
+
+Mr. Gladstone has not found it convenient to cite this passage; and,
+in view of various considerations, I dare not assume that he would
+assent to it, without sundry subtle modifications which, for me, might
+possibly rob it of its argumentative value. But, until the proposition
+is seriously controverted, I shall assume it to be true, and content
+myself with warning the reader that neither he nor I have any grounds
+for assuming Mr. Gladstone's concurrence. With this caution, I proceed
+to remark that I think it may be granted that the people whose herd of
+2000 swine (more or fewer) was suddenly destroyed suffered great loss
+and damage. And it is quite certain that the narrators of the Gadarene
+story do not, in any way, refer to the point of morality and legality
+thus raised; as I said, they show no inkling of the moral and legal
+difficulties which arise.
+
+Such being the facts of the case, I submit that for those who admit
+the principle laid down, the conclusion which I have drawn necessarily
+follows; though I repeat that, since Mr. Gladstone does not
+explicitly admit the principle, I am far from suggesting that he is
+bound by its logical consequences. However, I distinctly reiterate the
+opinion that any one who acted in the way described in the story
+would, in my judgment, be guilty of "a misdemeanour of evil example."
+About that point I desire to leave no ambiguity whatever; and it
+follows that, if I believed the story, I should have no hesitation in
+applying this judgment to the chief actor in it.
+
+But, if any one will do me the favour to turn to the paper in which
+these passages occur, he will find that a considerable part of it is
+devoted to the exposure of the familiar trick of the "counsel for
+creeds," who, when they wish to profit by the easily stirred _odium
+theologicum_, are careful to confuse disbelief in a narrative of a
+man's act, or disapproval of the acts as narrated, with disbelieving
+and vilipending the man himself. If I say that "according to
+paragraphs in several newspapers, my valued Separatist friend A.B. has
+houghed a lot of cattle, which he considered to be unlawfully in the
+possession of an Irish land-grabber; that, in my opinion, any such act
+is a misdemeanour of evil example; but, that I utterly disbelieve the
+whole story and have no doubt that it is a mere fabrication:" it
+really appears to me that, if any one charges me with calling A.B. an
+immoral misdemeanant I should be justified in using very strong
+language respecting either his sanity or his veracity. And, if an
+analogous charge has been brought in reference to the Gadarene story,
+there is certainly no excuse producible, on account of any lack of
+plain speech on my part. Surely no language can be more explicit than
+that which follows:
+
+"I can discern no escape from this dilemma; either Jesus said what he
+is reported to have said, or he did not. In the former case, it is
+inevitable that his authority on matters connected with the 'unseen
+world' should be roughly shaken; in the latter, the blow falls upon
+the authority of the synoptic Gospels" (p. 173). "The choice then lies
+between discrediting those who compiled the Gospel biographies and
+disbelieving the Master, whom they, simple souls, thought to honour by
+preserving such traditions of the exercise of his authority over
+Satan's invisible world" (p. 174). And I leave no shadow of doubt as
+to my own choice: "After what has been said, I do not think that any
+sensible man, unless he happen to be angry, will accuse me of
+'contradicting the Lord and his Apostles' if I reiterate my total
+disbelief in the whole Gadarene story" (p. 178).
+
+I am afraid, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone must have been exceedingly
+angry when he committed himself to such a statement as follows:
+
+     So, then, after eighteen centuries of worship offered to our
+     Lord by the most cultivated, the most developed, and the
+     most progressive portion of the human race, it has been
+     reserved to a scientific inquirer to discover that He was no
+     better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer.... How, in such
+     a matter, came the honours of originality to be reserved to
+     our time and to Professor Huxley? (Pp. 269, 270.)
+
+Truly, the hatchet is hardly a weapon of precision, but would seem to
+have rather more the character of the boomerang, which returns to
+damage the reckless thrower. Doubtless such incidents are somewhat
+ludicrous. But they have a very serious side; and, if I rated the
+opinion of those who blindly follow Mr. Gladstone's leading, but not
+light, in these matters, much higher than the great Duke of
+Wellington's famous standard of minimum value, I think I might fairly
+beg them to reflect upon the general bearings of this particular
+example of his controversial method. I imagine it can hardly commend
+itself to their cool judgment.
+
+After this tragi-comical ending to what an old historian calls a
+"robustious and rough coming on"; and after some praises of the
+provisions of the Mosaic law in the matter of not eating pork--in
+which, as pork disagrees with me and for some other reasons, I am much
+disposed to concur, though I do not see what they have to do with the
+matter in hand--comes the serious onslaught.
+
+     Mr. Huxley, exercising his rapid judgment on the text, does
+     not appear to have encumbered himself with the labour of
+     inquiring what anybody else had known or said about it. He
+     has thus missed a point which might have been set up in
+     support of his accusation against our Lord. (P. 273.)
+
+Unhappily for my conduct, I have been much exercised in controversy
+during the past thirty years; and the only compensation for the loss
+of time and the trials of temper which it has inflicted upon me, is
+that I have come to regard it as a branch of the fine arts, and to
+take an impartial and aesthetic interest in the way in which it is
+conducted, even by those whose efforts are directed against myself.
+Now, from the purely artistic point of view (which, as we are all
+being told, has nothing to do with morals), I consider it an axiom,
+that one should never appear to doubt that the other side has
+performed the elementary duty of acquiring proper elementary
+information, unless there is demonstrative evidence to the contrary.
+And I think, though I admit that this may be a purely subjective
+appreciation, that (unless you are quite certain) there is a "want of
+finish," as a great master of disputation once put it, about the
+suggestion that your opponent has missed a point on his own side.
+Because it may happen that he has not missed it at all, but only
+thought it unworthy of serious notice. And if he proves that, the
+suggestion looks foolish.
+
+Merely noting the careful repetition of a charge, the absurdity of
+which has been sufficiently exposed above, I now ask my readers to
+accompany me on a little voyage of discovery in search of the side on
+which the rapid judgment and the ignorance of the literature of the
+subject lie. I think I may promise them very little trouble, and a
+good deal of entertainment.
+
+Mr. Gladstone is of opinion that the Gadarene swinefolk were "Hebrews
+bound by the Mosaic law" (p. 274); and he conceives that it has not
+occurred to me to learn what may be said in favour of and against this
+view. He tells us that
+
+     Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for
+     stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of
+     Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine
+     was innocent and lawful. (P. 273.)
+
+Mr. Gladstone then goes on to inform his readers that in his
+painstaking search after truth he has submitted to the labour of
+personally examining the writings of Josephus. Moreover, in a note, he
+positively exhibits an acquaintance, in addition, with the works of
+Bishop Wordsworth and of Archbishop Trench; and even shows that he has
+read Hudson's commentary on Josephus. And yet people say that our
+Biblical critics do not equal the Germans in research! But Mr.
+Gladstone's citation of Cuvier and Sir John Herschel about the
+Creation myth, and his ignorance of all the best modern writings on
+his own side, produced a great impression on my mind. I have had the
+audacity to suspect that his acquaintance with what has been done in
+Biblical history might stand at no higher level than his information
+about the natural sciences. However unwillingly, I have felt bound to
+consider the possibility that Mr. Gladstone's labours in this matter
+may have carried him no further than Josephus and the worthy, but
+somewhat antique, episcopal and other authorities to whom he refers;
+that even his reading of Josephus may have been of the most cursory
+nature, directed not to the understanding of his author, but to the
+discovery of useful controversial matter; and that, in view of the not
+inconsiderable misrepresentation of my statements to which I have
+drawn attention, it might be that Mr. Gladstone's exposition of the
+evidence of Josephus was not more trustworthy. I proceed to show that
+my previsions have been fully justified. I doubt if controversial
+literature contains anything more _piquant_ than the story I have to
+unfold.
+
+That I should be reproved for rapidity of judgment is very just;
+however quaint the situation of Mr. Gladstone, as the reprover, may
+seem to people blessed with a sense of humour. But it is a quality,
+the defects of which have been painfully obvious to me all my life;
+and I try to keep my Pegasus--at best, a poor Shetland variety of that
+species of quadruped--at a respectable jog-trot, by loading him
+heavily with bales of reading. Those who took the trouble to study my
+paper in good faith and not for mere controversial purposes, have a
+right to know, that something more than a hasty glimpse of two or
+three passages of Josephus (even with as many episcopal works thrown
+in) lay at the back of the few paragraphs I devoted to the Gadarene
+story. I proceed to set forth, as briefly as I can, some results of
+that preparatory work. My artistic principles do not permit me, at
+present, to express a doubt that Mr. Gladstone was acquainted with the
+facts I am about to mention when he undertook to write. But, if he did
+know them, then both what he has said and what he has not said, his
+assertions and his omissions alike, will require a paragraph to
+themselves.
+
+The common consent of the synoptic Gospels affirms that the miraculous
+transference of devils from a man, or men, to sundry pigs, took place
+somewhere on the eastern shore of the Lake of Tiberias; "on the other
+side of the sea over against Galilee," the western shore being,
+without doubt, included in the latter province. But there is no such
+concord when we come to the name of the part of the eastern shore, on
+which, according to the story, Jesus and his disciples landed. In the
+revised version, Matthew calls it the "country of the Gadarenes:" Luke
+and Mark have "Gerasenes." In sundry very ancient manuscripts
+"Gergesenes" occurs.
+
+The existence of any place called Gergesa, however, is declared by the
+weightiest authorities whom I have consulted to be very questionable;
+and no such town is mentioned in the list of the cities of the
+Decapolis, in the territory of which (as it would seem from Mark v.
+20) the transaction was supposed to take place. About Gerasa, on the
+other hand, there hangs no such doubt. It was a large and important
+member of the group of the Decapolitan cities. But Gerasa is more than
+thirty miles distant from the nearest part of the Lake of Tiberias,
+while the city mentioned in the narrative could not have been very far
+off the scene of the event. However, as Gerasa was a very important
+Hellenic city, not much more than a score of miles from Gadara, it is
+easily imaginable that a locality which was part of Decapolitan
+territory may have been spoken of as belonging to one of the two
+cities, when it really appertained to the other. After weighing all
+the arguments, no doubt remains on my mind that "Gadarene" is the
+proper reading. At the period under consideration, Gadara appears to
+have been a good-sized fortified town, about two miles in
+circumference. It was a place of considerable strategic importance,
+inasmuch as it lay on a high ridge at the point of intersection of the
+roads from Tiberias, Scythopolis, Damascus, and Gerasa. Three miles
+north from it, where the Tiberias road descended into the valley of
+the Hieromices, lay the famous hot springs and the fashionable baths
+of Amatha. On the north-east side, the remains of the extensive
+necropolis of Gadara are still to be seen. Innumerable sepulchral
+chambers are excavated in the limestone cliffs, and many of them still
+contain sarcophaguses of basalt; while not a few are converted into
+dwellings by the inhabitants of the present village of Um Keis. The
+distance of Gadara from the south-eastern shore of the Lake of
+Tiberias is less than seven miles. The nearest of the other cities of
+the Decapolis, to the north, is Hippos, which also lay some seven
+miles off, in the south-eastern corner of the shore of the lake. In
+accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice, that each city should
+be surrounded by a certain amount of territory amenable to its
+jurisdiction,[101] and on other grounds, it may be taken for certain
+that the intermediate country was divided between Gadara and Hippos;
+and that the citizens of Gadara had free access to a port on the lake.
+Hence the title of "country of the Gadarenes" applied to the locality
+of the porcine catastrophe becomes easily intelligible. The swine may
+well be imagined to have been feeding (as they do now in the adjacent
+region) on the hillsides, which slope somewhat steeply down to the
+lake from the northern boundary wall of the valley of the Hieromices
+(_Nahr Yarmuk_), about half-way between the city and the shore, and
+doubtless lay well within the territory of the _polis_ of Gadara.
+
+The proof that Gadara was, to all intents and purposes, a Gentile, and
+not a Jewish, city is complete. The date and the occasion of its
+foundation are unknown; but it certainly existed in the third century
+B.C. Antiochus the Great annexed it to his dominions in B.C. 198.
+After this, during the brief revival of Jewish autonomy, Alexander
+Jannaeus took it; and for the first time, so far as the records go, it
+fell under Jewish rule.[102] From this it was rescued by Pompey (B.C.
+63), who rebuilt the city and incorporated it with the province of
+Syria. In gratitude to the Romans for the dissolution of a hated
+union, the Gadarenes adopted the Pompeian era of their coinage. Gadara
+was a commercial centre of some importance, and therefore, it may be
+assumed, Jews settled in it, as they settled in almost all
+considerable Gentile cities. But a wholly mistaken estimate of the
+magnitude of the Jewish colony has been based upon the notion that
+Gabinius, proconsul of Syria in 57-55 B.C., seated one of the five
+sanhedrins in Gadara. Schuerer has pointed out that what he really did
+was to lodge one of them in Gadara, far away on the other side of the
+Jordan. This is one of the many errors which have arisen out of the
+confusion of the names Ga_d_ara, Ga_z_ara, and Ga_b_ara.
+
+Augustus made a present of Gadara to Herod the Great, as an appanage
+personal to himself; and, upon Herod's death, recognising it to be a
+"Grecian city" like Hippos and Gaza,[103] he transferred it back to
+its former place in the province of Syria. That Herod made no effort
+to judaise his temporary possession, but rather the contrary, is
+obvious from the fact that the coins of Gadara, while under his rule,
+bear the image of Augustus with the superscription [Greek: Sebastos]--a
+flying in the face of Jewish prejudices which, even he, did not dare
+to venture upon in Judaea. And I may remark that, if my co-trustee of
+the British Museum had taken the trouble to visit the splendid
+numismatic collection under our charge, he might have seen two coins
+of Gadara, one of the time of Tiberius and the other of that of Titus,
+each bearing the effigies of the emperor on the obverse: while the
+personified genius of the city is on the reverse of the former.
+Further, the well-known works of De Saulcy and of Ekhel would have
+supplied the information that, from the time of Augustus to that of
+Gordian, the Gadarene coinage had the same thoroughly Gentile
+character. Curious that a city of "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law"
+should tolerate such a mint!
+
+Whatever increase in population the Ghetto of Gadara may have
+undergone, between B.C. 4 and A.D. 66, it nowise affected the gentile
+and anti-judaic character of the city at the outbreak of the great
+war; for Josephus tells us that, immediately after the great massacre
+of Caesarea, the revolted Jews "laid waste the villages of the Syrians
+and their neighbouring cities, Philadelphia and Sebonitis and Gerasa
+and Pella and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara and Hippos" ("Wars,"
+II. xviii. 1). I submit that, if Gadara had been a city of "Hebrews
+bound by the Mosaic law," the ravaging of their territory by their
+brother Jews, in revenge for the massacre of the Caesarean Jews by the
+Gentile population of that place, would surely have been a somewhat
+unaccountable proceeding. But when we proceed a little further, to the
+fifth section of the chapter in which this statement occurs, the whole
+affair becomes intelligible enough.
+
+     Besides this murder at Scythopolis, the other cities rose up
+     against the Jews that were among them: those of Askelon slew
+     two thousand five hundred, and those of Ptolemais two
+     thousand, and put not a few into bonds; those of Tyre also
+     put a great number to death, but kept a great number in
+     prison; moreover, those of Hippos and those of Gadara did
+     the like, while they put to death the boldest of the Jews,
+     but kept those of whom they were most afraid in custody; as
+     did the rest of the cities of Syria according as they every
+     one either hated them or were afraid of them.
+
+Josephus is not always trustworthy, but he has no conceivable motive
+for altering facts here; he speaks of contemporary events, in which he
+himself took an active part, and he characterises the cities in the
+way familiar to him. For Josephus, Gadara is just as much a Gentile
+city as Ptolemais; it was reserved for his latest commentator, either
+ignoring, or ignorant of, all this, to tell us that Gadara had a
+Hebrew population, bound by the Mosaic law.
+
+In the face of all this evidence, most of which has been put before
+serious students, with full reference to the needful authorities and
+in a thoroughly judicial manner, by Schuerer in his classical
+work,[104] one reads with stupefaction the statement which Mr.
+Gladstone has thought fit to put before the uninstructed public:
+
+     Some commentators have alleged the authority of Josephus for
+     stating that Gadara was a city of Greeks rather than of
+     Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine
+     was innocent and lawful. This is not quite the place for a
+     critical examination of the matter; but I have examined it,
+     and have satisfied myself that Josephus gives no reason
+     whatever to suppose that the population of Gadara, and still
+     less (if less may be) the population of the neighbourhood,
+     and least of all the swine-herding or lower portion of that
+     population, were other than Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law.
+     (Pp. 373-4.)
+
+Even "rapid judgment" cannot be pleaded in excuse for this surprising
+statement, because a "Note on the Gadarene miracle" is added (in a
+special appendix), in which the references are given to the passages
+of Josephus, by the improved interpretation of which, Mr. Gladstone
+has thus contrived to satisfy himself of the thing which is not. One
+of these is "Antiquities" XVII. xiii. 4, in which section, I regret to
+say, I can find no mention of Gadara. In "Antiquities," XVII. xi. 4,
+however, there is a passage which would appear to be that Mr.
+Gladstone means; and I will give it in full, although I have already
+cited part of it:
+
+     There were also certain of the cities which paid tribute to
+     Archelaus; Strato's tower, and Sebaste, with Joppa and
+     Jerusalem; for, as to Gaza, Gadara, and Hippos, they were
+     Grecian cities, which Caesar separated from his government,
+     and added them to the province of Syria.
+
+That is to say, Augustus simply restored the state of things which
+existed before he gave Gadara, then certainly a Gentile city, lying
+outside Judaea, to Herod as a mark of great personal favour. Yet Mr.
+Gladstone can gravely tell those who are not in a position to check
+his statements:
+
+     The sense seems to be, not that these cities were inhabited
+     by a Greek population, but that they had politically been
+     taken out of Judaea and added to Syria, which I presume was
+     classified as simply Hellenic, a portion of the great Greek
+     empire erected by Alexander. (Pp. 295-6.)
+
+Mr. Gladstone's next reference is to the "Wars," III. vii. 1:
+
+     So Vespasian marched to the city Gadara, and took it upon
+     the first onset, because he found it destitute of a
+     considerable number of men grown up for war. He then came
+     into it, and slew all the youth, the Romans having no mercy
+     on any age whatsoever; and this was done out of the hatred
+     they bore the nation, and because of the iniquity they had
+     been guilty of in the affair of Cestius.
+
+Obviously, then, Gadara was an ultra-Jewish city. Q.E.D. But a student
+trained in the use of weapons of precision, rather than in that of
+rhetorical tomahawks, has had many and painful warnings to look well
+about him, before trusting an argument to the mercies of a passage,
+the context of which he has not carefully considered. If Mr. Gladstone
+had not been too much in a hurry to turn his imaginary prize to
+account--if he had paused just to look at the preceding chapter of
+Josephus--he would have discovered that his much haste meant very
+little speed. He would have found ("Wars," III. vi. 2) that Vespasian
+marched from his base, the port of Ptolemais (Acre), on the shores of
+the Mediterranean, into Galilee; and, having dealt with the so-called
+"Gadara," was minded to finish with Jotapata, a strong place about
+fourteen miles south-east of Ptolemais, into which Josephus, who at
+first had fled to Tiberias, eventually threw himself--Vespasian
+arriving before Jotapata "the very next day." Now, if any one will
+take a decent map of Ancient Palestine in hand, he will see that
+Jotapata, as I have said, lies about fourteen miles in a straight line
+east-south-east of Ptolemais, while a certain town, "Gabara" (which
+was also held by the Jews), is situated, about the same distance, to
+the east of that port. Nothing can be more obvious than that
+Vespasian, wishing to advance from Ptolemais into Galilee, could not
+afford to leave these strongholds in the possession of the enemy; and,
+as Gabara would lie on his left flank when he moved to Jotapata, he
+took that city, whence his communications with his base could easily
+be threatened, first. It might really have been fair evidence of
+demoniac possession, if the best general of Rome had marched forty odd
+miles, as the crow flies, through hostile Galilee, to take a city
+(which, moreover, had just tried to abolish its Jewish population) on
+the other side of the Jordan; and then marched back again to a place
+fourteen miles off his starting-point.[105] One would think that the
+most careless of readers must be startled by this incongruity into
+inquiring whether there might not be something wrong with the text;
+and, if he had done so, he would have easily discovered that since the
+time of Reland, a century and a half ago, careful scholars have read
+Ga_b_ara for Ga_d_ara.[106]
+
+Once more, I venture to point out that training in the use of the
+weapons of precision of science may have its value in historical
+studies, if only in preventing the occurrence of droll blunders in
+geography.
+
+In the third citation ("Wars," IV. vii.) Josephus tells us that
+Vespasian marched against "Gadara," which he calls the metropolis of
+Peraea (it was possibly the seat of a common festival of the
+Decapolitan cities), and entered it, without opposition, the wealthy
+and powerful citizens having opened negotiations with him without the
+knowledge of an opposite party, who, "as being inferior in number to
+their enemies, who were within the city, and seeing the Romans very
+near the city," resolved to fly. Before doing so, however, they, after
+a fashion unfortunately too common among the Zealots, murdered and
+shockingly mutilated Dolesus, a man of the first rank, who had
+promoted the embassy to Vespasian; and then "ran out of the city."
+Hereupon, "the people of Gadara" (surely not this time "Hebrews bound
+by the Mosaic law") received Vespasian with joyful acclamations,
+voluntarily pulled down their wall, so that the city could not in
+future be used as a fortress by the Jews, and accepted a Roman
+garrison for their future protection. Granting that this Gadara really
+is the city of the Gadarenes, the reference, without citation, to the
+passage, in support of Mr. Gladstone's contention seems rather
+remarkable. Taken in conjunction with the shortly antecedent ravaging
+of the Gadarene territory by the Jews, in fact, better proof could
+hardly be expected of the real state of the case; namely, that the
+population of Gadara (and notably the wealthy and respectable part of
+it) was thoroughly Hellenic; though, as in Caesarea and elsewhere among
+the Palestinian cities, the rabble contained a considerable body of
+fanatical Jews, whose reckless ferocity made them, even though a mere
+minority of the population, a standing danger to the city.
+
+Thus Mr. Gladstone's conclusion from his study of Josephus, that the
+population of Gadara were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law," turns out
+to depend upon nothing better than the marvellously complete
+misinterpretation of what that author says, combined with equally
+marvellous geographical misunderstandings, long since exposed and
+rectified; while the positive evidence that Gadara, like other cities
+of the Decapolis, was thoroughly Hellenic in organisation, and
+essentially Gentile in population, is overwhelming.
+
+And, that being the fact of the matter, patent to all who will take
+the trouble to enquire about what has been said about it, however
+obscure to those who merely talk of so doing, the thesis that the
+Gadarene swineherds, or owners, were Jews violating the Mosaic law
+shows itself to be an empty and most unfortunate guess. But really,
+whether they that kept the swine were Jews, or whether they were
+Gentiles, is a consideration which has no relevance whatever to my
+case. The legal provisions, which alone had authority over an
+inhabitant of the country of the Gadarenes, were the Gentile laws
+sanctioned by the Roman suzerain of the province of Syria, just as the
+only law, which has authority in England, is that recognised by the
+sovereign Legislature. Jewish communities in England may have their
+private code, as they doubtless had in Gadara. But an English
+magistrate, if called upon to enforce their peculiar laws, would
+dismiss the complainants from the judgment seat, let us hope with more
+politeness than Gallio did in a like case, but quite as firmly.
+Moreover, in the matter of keeping pigs, we may be quite certain that
+Gadarene law left everybody free to do as he pleased, indeed
+encouraged the practice rather than otherwise. Not only was pork one
+of the commonest and one of the most favourite articles of Roman diet;
+but, to both Greeks and Romans, the pig was a sacrificial animal of
+high importance. Sucking pigs played an important part in Hellenic
+purificatory rites; and everybody knows the significance of the Roman
+suovetaurilia, depicted on so many bas-reliefs.
+
+Under these circumstances, only the extreme need of a despairing
+"reconciler" drowning in a sea of adverse facts, can explain the
+catching at such a poor straw as the reckless guess that the
+swineherds of the "country of the Gadarenes" were erring Jews, doing a
+little clandestine business on their own account. The endeavour to
+justify the asserted destruction of the swine by the analogy of
+breaking open a cask of smuggled spirits, and wasting their contents
+on the ground, is curiously unfortunate. Does Mr. Gladstone mean to
+suggest that a Frenchman landing at Dover, and coming upon a cask of
+smuggled brandy in the course of a stroll along the cliffs, has the
+right to break it open and waste its contents on the ground? Yet the
+party of Galileans who, according to the narrative, landed and took a
+walk on the Gadarene territory, were as much foreigners in the
+Decapolis as Frenchmen would be at Dover. Herod Antipas, their
+sovereign, had no jurisdiction in the Decapolis--they were strangers
+and aliens, with no more right to interfere with a pig-keeping Hebrew,
+than I have a right to interfere with an English professor of the
+Israelitic faith, if I see a slice of ham on his plate. According to
+the law of the country in which these Galilean foreigners found
+themselves, men might keep pigs if they pleased. If the men who kept
+them were Jews, it might be permissible for the strangers to inform
+the religious authority acknowledged by the Jews of Gadara; but to
+interfere themselves, in such a matter, was a step devoid of either
+moral or legal justification.
+
+Suppose a modern English Sabbatarian fanatic, who believes, on the
+strength of his interpretation of the fourth commandment, that it is a
+deadly sin to work on the "Lord's Day," sees a fellow Puritan yielding
+to the temptation of getting in his harvest on a fine Sunday
+morning--is the former justified in setting fire to the latter's corn?
+Would not an English court of justice speedily teach him better?
+
+In truth, the government which permits private persons, on any pretext
+(especially pious and patriotic pretexts), to take the law into their
+own hands, fails in the performance of the primary duties of all
+governments; while those who set the example of such acts, or who
+approve them, or who fail to disapprove them, are doing their best to
+dissolve civil society; they are compassers of illegality and fautors
+of immorality.
+
+I fully understand that Mr. Gladstone may not see the matter in this
+light. He may possibly consider that the union of Gadara with the
+Decapolis, by Augustus, was a "blackguard" transaction, which deprived
+Hellenic Gadarene law of all moral force; and that it was quite proper
+for a Jewish Galilean, going back to the time when the land of the
+Girgashites was given to his ancestors, some 1500 years before, to
+act, as if the state of things which ought to obtain, in territory
+which traditionally, at any rate, belonged to his forefathers, did
+really exist. And, that being so, I can only say I do not agree with
+him, but leave the matter to the appreciation of those of our
+countrymen, happily not yet the minority, who believe that the first
+condition of enduring liberty is obedience to the law of the land.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The end of the month drawing nigh, I thought it well to send away the
+manuscript of the foregoing pages yesterday, leaving open, in my own
+mind, the possibility of adding a succinct characterisation of Mr.
+Gladstone's controversial methods as illustrated therein. This
+morning, however, I had the pleasure of reading a speech which I think
+must satisfy the requirements of the most fastidious of controversial
+artists; and there occurs in it so concise, yet so complete, a
+delineation of Mr. Gladstone's way of dealing with disputed questions
+of another kind, that no poor effort of mine could better it as a
+description of the aspect which his treatment of scientific,
+historical, and critical questions presents to me.
+
+     The smallest examination would have told a man of his
+     capacity and of his experience that he was uttering the
+     grossest exaggerations, that he was basing arguments upon
+     the slightest hypotheses, and that his discussions only had
+     to be critically examined by the most careless critic in
+     order to show their intrinsic hollowness.
+
+Those who have followed me through this paper will hardly dispute the
+justice of this judgment, severe as it is. But the Chief Secretary
+for Ireland has science in the blood; and has the advantage of a
+natural, as well as a highly cultivated, aptitude for the use of
+methods of precision in investigation, and for the exact enunciation
+of the results thereby obtained.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [101] Thus Josephus (lib. ix.) says that his rival, Justus,
+          persuaded the citizens of Tiberias to "set the villages
+          that belonged to Gadara and Hippos on fire; which
+          villages were situated on the borders of Tiberias and
+          of the region of Scythopolis."
+
+    [102] It is said to have been destroyed by its captors.
+
+    [103] "But as to the Grecian cities, Gaza and Gadara and
+          Hippos, he cut them off from the kingdom and added them
+          to Syria."--Josephus, _Wars_, II. vi. 3. See also
+          _Antiquities_, XVII. xi. 4.
+
+    [104] _Geschichte des juedischen Volkes im Zeitalter Christi_,
+          1886-90.
+
+    [105] If William the Conqueror, after fighting the battle
+          of Hastings, had marched to capture Chichester and then
+          returned to assault Rye, being all the while anxious to
+          reach London, his proceedings would not have been more
+          eccentric than Mr. Gladstone must imagine those of
+          Vespasian were.
+
+    [106] See Reland, _Palestina_ (1714), t. ii. p. 771. Also
+          Robinson, _Later Biblical Researches_ (1856), p. 87
+          _note_.
+
+
+
+
+XI: ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL METHODS
+
+[1891]
+
+
+The series of essays, in defence of the historical accuracy of the
+Jewish and Christian Scriptures, contributed by Mr. Gladstone to "Good
+Words," having been revised and enlarged by their author, appeared
+last year as a separate volume, under the somewhat defiant title of
+"The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture."
+
+The last of these Essays, entitled "Conclusion," contains an attack,
+or rather several attacks, couched in language which certainly does
+not err upon the side of moderation or of courtesy, upon statements
+and opinions of mine. One of these assaults is a deliberately devised
+attempt, not merely to rouse the theological prejudices ingrained in
+the majority of Mr. Gladstone's readers, but to hold me up as a person
+who has endeavoured to besmirch the personal character of the object
+of their veneration. For Mr. Gladstone asserts that I have undertaken
+to try "the character of our Lord" (p. 268); and he tells the many who
+are, as I think unfortunately, predisposed to place implicit credit in
+his assertions, that it has been reserved for me to discover that
+Jesus "was no better than a law-breaker and an evil-doer!" (p. 269).
+
+It was extremely easy for me to prove, as I did in the pages of this
+Review last December, that, under the most favourable interpretation,
+this amazing declaration must be ascribed to extreme confusion of
+thought. And, by bringing an abundance of good-will to the
+consideration of the subject, I have now convinced myself that it is
+right for me to admit that a person of Mr. Gladstone's intellectual
+acuteness really did mistake the reprobation of the course of conduct
+ascribed to Jesus, in a story of which I expressly say I do not
+believe a word, for an attack on his character and a declaration that
+he was "no better than a law-breaker, and an evil-doer." At any rate,
+so far as I can see, this is what Mr. Gladstone wished to be believed
+when he wrote the following passage:--
+
+     I must, however, in passing, make the confession that I did
+     not state with accuracy, as I ought to have done, the
+     precise form of the accusation. I treated it as an
+     imputation on the action of our Lord; he replies that it is
+     only an imputation on the narrative of three evangelists
+     respecting Him. The difference, from his point of view, is
+     probably material, and I therefore regret that I overlooked
+     it.[107]
+
+Considering the gravity of the error which is here admitted, the
+fashion of the withdrawal appears more singular than admirable. From
+my "point of view"--not from Mr. Gladstone's apparently--the little
+discrepancy between the facts and Mr. Gladstone's carefully offensive
+travesty of them is "probably" (only "probably") material. However, as
+Mr. Gladstone concludes with an official expression of regret for his
+error, it is my business to return an equally official expression of
+gratitude for the attenuated reparation with which I am favoured.
+
+Having cleared this specimen of Mr. Gladstone's controversial method
+out of the way, I may proceed to the next assault, that on a passage
+in an article on Agnosticism ("Nineteenth Century," February 1889),
+published two years ago. I there said, in referring to the Gadarene
+story, "Everything I know of law and justice convinces me that the
+wanton destruction of other people's property is a misdemeanour of
+evil example." On this, Mr. Gladstone, continuing his candid and
+urbane observations, remarks ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273) that,
+"Exercising his rapid judgment on the text," and "not inquiring what
+anybody else had known or said about it," I had missed a point in
+support of that "accusation against our Lord" which he has now been
+constrained to admit I never made.
+
+The "point" in question is that "Gadara was a city of Greeks rather
+than of Jews, from whence it might be inferred that to keep swine was
+innocent and lawful." I conceive that I have abundantly proved that
+Gadara answered exactly to the description here given of it; and I
+shall show, by and by, that Mr. Gladstone has used language which, to
+my mind, involves the admission that the authorities of the city were
+not Jews. But I have also taken a good deal of pains to show that the
+question thus raised is of no importance in relation to the main
+issue.[108] If Gadara was, as I maintain it was, a city of the
+Decapolis, Hellenistic in constitution and containing a predominantly
+Gentile population, my case is superabundantly fortified. On the other
+hand, if the hypothesis that Gadara was under Jewish government, which
+Mr. Gladstone seems sometimes to defend and sometimes to give up,
+were accepted, my case would be nowise weakened. At any rate, Gadara
+was not included within the jurisdiction of the tetrach of Galilee; if
+it had been, the Galileans who crossed over the lake to Gadara had no
+official status; and they had no more civil right to punish
+law-breakers than any other strangers.
+
+In my turn, however, I may remark that there is a "point" which
+appears to have escaped Mr. Gladstone's notice. And that is somewhat
+unfortunate, because his whole argument turns upon it. Mr. Gladstone
+assumes, as a matter of course, that pig-keeping was an offence
+against the "Law of Moses"; and, therefore, that Jews who kept pigs
+were as much liable to legal pains and penalties as Englishmen who
+smuggle brandy ("Impregnable Rock," p. 274).
+
+There can be no doubt that, according to the Law, as it is defined in
+the Pentateuch, the pig was an "unclean" animal, and that pork was a
+forbidden article of diet. Moreover, since pigs are hardly likely to
+be kept for the mere love of those unsavoury animals, pig-owning, or
+swine-herding, must have been, and evidently was, regarded as a
+suspicious and degrading occupation by strict Jews, in the first
+century A.D. But I should like to know on what provision of the Mosaic
+Law, as it is laid down in the Pentateuch, Mr. Gladstone bases the
+assumption, which is essential to his case, that the possession of
+pigs and the calling of a swineherd were actually illegal. The
+inquiry was put to me the other day; and, as I could not answer it, I
+turned up the article "Schwein" in Riehm's standard "Handwoerterbuch,"
+for help out of my difficulty; but unfortunately without success.
+After speaking of the martyrdom which the Jews, under Antiochus
+Epiphanes, preferred to eating pork, the writer proceeds:--
+
+     It may be, nevertheless, that the practice of keeping pigs
+     may have found its way into Palestine in the Graeco-Roman
+     time, in consequence of the great increase of the non-Jewish
+     population; yet there is no evidence of it in the New
+     Testament; the great herd of swine, 2,000 in number,
+     mentioned in the narrative of the possessed, was feeding in
+     the territory of Gadara, which belonged to the Decapolis;
+     and the prodigal son became a swineherd with the native of a
+     far country into which he had wandered; in neither of these
+     cases is there reason for thinking that the possessors of
+     these herds were Jews.[109]
+
+Having failed in my search, so far, I took up the next book of
+reference at hand, Kitto's "Cyclopaedia" (vol. iii. 1876). There, under
+"Swine," the writer, Colonel Hamilton Smith, seemed at first to give
+me what I wanted, as he says that swine "appear to have been
+repeatedly introduced and reared by the Hebrew people,[110]
+notwithstanding the strong prohibition in the Law of Moses (Is. lxv.
+4)." But, in the first place, Isaiah's writings form no part of the
+"Law of Moses"; and, in the second place, the people denounced by the
+prophet in this passage are neither the possessors of pigs, nor
+swineherds, but these "which eat swine's flesh and broth of abominable
+things is in their vessels." And when, in despair, I turned to the
+provisions of the Law itself, my difficulty was not cleared up.
+Leviticus xi. 8 (Revised Version) says, in reference to the pig and
+other unclean animals: "Of their flesh ye shall not eat, and their
+carcasses ye shall not touch." In the revised version of Deuteronomy,
+xiv. 8, the words of the prohibition are identical, and a skilful
+refiner might possibly satisfy himself, even if he satisfied nobody
+else, that "carcase" means the body of a live animal as well as a dead
+one; and that, since swineherds could hardly avoid contact with their
+charges, their calling was implicitly forbidden.[111] Unfortunately,
+the authorised version expressly says "dead carcase"; and thus the
+most rabbinically minded of reconcilers might find his casuistry
+foiled by that great source of surprises, the "original Hebrew." That
+such check is at any rate possible, is clear from the fact that the
+legal uncleanness of some animals, as food, did not interfere with
+their being lawfully possessed, cared for, and sold by Jews. The
+provisions for the ransoming of unclean beasts (Lev. xxvii. 27) and
+for the redemption of their sucklings (Numbers xviii. 15) sufficiently
+prove this. As the late Dr. Kalisch has observed in his "Commentary"
+on Leviticus, part ii. p. 129, note:--
+
+     Though asses and horses, camels and dogs, were kept by the
+     Israelites, they were, to a certain extent, associated with
+     the notion of impurity; they might be turned to profitable
+     account by their labour or otherwise, but in respect to food
+     they were an abomination.
+
+The same learned commentator (_loc. cit._ p. 88) proves that the
+Talmudists forbade the rearing of pigs by Jews, unconditionally and
+everywhere; and even included it under the same ban as the study of
+Greek philosophy, "since both alike were considered to lead to the
+desertion of the Jewish faith." It is very possible, indeed probable,
+that the Pharisees of the fourth decade of our first century took as
+strong a view of pig-keeping as did their spiritual descendants. But,
+for all that, it does not follow that the practice was illegal. The
+stricter Jews could not have despised and hated swineherds more than
+they did publicans; but, so far as I know, there is no provision in
+the Law against the practice of the calling of a tax-gatherer by a
+Jew. The publican was in fact very much in the position of an Irish
+process-server at the present day--more, rather than less, despised
+and hated on account of the perfect legality of his occupation. Except
+for certain sacrificial purposes, pigs were held in such abhorrence by
+the ancient Egyptians, that swineherds were not permitted to enter a
+temple, or to intermarry with other castes; and any one who had
+touched a pig, even accidentally, was unclean. But these very
+regulations prove that pig-keeping was not illegal; it merely involved
+certain civil and religious disabilities. For the Jews, dogs were
+typically "unclean animals"; but when that eminently pious Hebrew,
+Tobit, "went forth" with the angel "the young man's dog" went "with
+them" (Tobit v. 16) without apparent remonstrance from the celestial
+guide. I really do not see how an appeal to the Law could have
+justified any one in drowning Tobit's dog, on the ground that his
+master was keeping and feeding an animal quite as "unclean" as any
+pig. Certainly the excellent Raguel must have failed to see the harm
+of dog-keeping, for we are told that, on the traveller's return
+homewards, "the dog went after them" (xi. 4).
+
+Until better light than I have been able to obtain is thrown upon the
+subject, therefore, it is obvious that Mr. Gladstone's argumentative
+house has been built upon an extremely slippery quick-sand; perhaps
+even has no foundation at all.
+
+Yet another "point" does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone,
+who is so much shocked that I attach no overwhelming weight to the
+assertions contained in the synoptic Gospels, even when all three
+concur. These Gospels agree in stating, in the most express, and to
+some extent verbally identical, terms, that the devils entered the
+pigs at their own request,[112] and the third Gospel (viii. 31) tells
+us what the motive of the demons was in asking the singular boon:
+"They intreated him that he would not command them to depart into the
+abyss." From this, it would seem that the devils thought to exchange
+the heavy punishment of transportation to the abyss for the lighter
+penalty of imprisonment in swine. And some commentators, more
+ingenious than respectful to the supposed chief actor in this
+extraordinary fable, have dwelt, with satisfaction, upon the very
+unpleasant quarter of an hour which the evil spirits must have had,
+when the headlong rush of their maddened tenements convinced them how
+completely they were taken in. In the whole story, there is not one
+solitary hint that the destruction of the pigs was intended as a
+punishment of their owners, or of the swineherds. On the contrary, the
+concurrent testimony of the three narratives is to the effect that
+the catastrophe was the consequence of diabolic suggestion. And,
+indeed, no source could be more appropriate for an act of such
+manifest injustice and illegality.
+
+I can but marvel that modern defenders of the faith should not be glad
+of any reasonable excuse for getting rid of a story which, if it had
+been invented by Voltaire, would have justly let loose floods of
+orthodox indignation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus, the hypothesis, to which Mr. Gladstone so fondly clings, finds
+no support in the provisions of the "Law of Moses" as that law is
+defined in the Pentateuch; while it is wholly inconsistent with the
+concurrent testimony of the synoptic Gospels, to which Mr. Gladstone
+attaches so much weight. In my judgment, it is directly contrary to
+everything which profane history tells us about the constitution and
+the population of the city of Gadara; and it commits those who accept
+it to a story which, if it were true, would implicate the founder of
+Christianity in an illegal and inequitable act.
+
+Such being the case, I consider myself excused from following Mr.
+Gladstone through all the meanderings of his late attempt to extricate
+himself from the maze of historical and exegetical difficulties in
+which he is entangled. I content myself with assuring those who, with
+my paper (not Mr. Gladstone's version of my arguments) in hand,
+consult the original authorities, that they will find full
+justification for every statement I have made. But in order to dispose
+those who cannot, or will not, take that trouble, to believe that the
+proverbial blindness of one that judges his own cause plays no part in
+inducing me to speak thus decidedly, I beg their attention to the
+following examination, which shall be as brief as I can make it, of
+the seven propositions in which Mr. Gladstone professes to give a
+faithful summary of my "errors."
+
+When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Holy See declared
+that certain propositions contained in the work of Bishop Jansen were
+heretical, the Jansenists of Port Royal replied that, while they were
+ready to defer to the Papal authority about questions of faith and
+morals, they must be permitted to judge about questions of fact for
+themselves; and that, really, the condemned propositions were not to
+be found in Jansen's writings. As everybody knows, His Holiness and
+the Grand Monarque replied to this, surely not unreasonable, plea
+after the manner of Lord Peter in the "Tale of a Tub." It is,
+therefore, not without some apprehension of meeting with a similar
+fate, that I put in a like plea against Mr. Gladstone's Bull. The
+seven propositions declared to be false and condemnable, in that
+kindly and gentle way which so pleasantly compares with the
+authoritative style of the Vatican (No. 5 more particularly), may or
+may not be true. But they are not to be found in anything I have
+written. And some of them diametrically contravene that which I have
+written. I proceed to prove my assertions.
+
+PROP. 1. _Throughout the paper he confounds together what I had
+distinguished, namely, the city of Gadara and the vicinage attached to
+it, not as a mere pomoerium, but as a rural district_.
+
+In my judgment, this statement is devoid of foundation. In my paper on
+"The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I point out, at some length, that,
+"in accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice," each city of the
+Decapolis must have been "surrounded by a certain amount of territory
+amenable to its jurisdiction": and, to enforce this conclusion, I
+quote what Josephus says about the "villages that belonged to Gadara
+and Hippos." As I understand the term _pomerium_ or _pomoerium_,[113]
+it means the space which, according to Roman custom, was kept free
+from buildings, immediately within and without the walls of a city;
+and which defined the range of the _auspicia urbana_. The conception
+of a _pomoerium_ as a "vicinage attached to" a city, appears to be
+something quite novel and original. But then, to be sure, I do not
+know how many senses Mr. Gladstone may attach to the word "vicinage."
+
+Whether Gadara had a _pomoerium_, in the proper technical sense, or
+not, is a point on which I offer no opinion. But that the city had a
+very considerable "rural district" attached to it and notwithstanding
+its distinctness, amenable to the jurisdiction of the Gentile
+municipal authorities, is one of the main points of my case.
+
+PROP. 2. _He more fatally confounds the local civil government and its
+following, including, perhaps, the whole wealthy class and those
+attached to it, with the ethnical character of a general population._
+
+Having survived confusion No. 1, which turns out not to be on my side,
+I am now confronted in No. 2 with a "more fatal" error--and so it is,
+if there be degrees of fatality; but, again, it is Mr. Gladstone's and
+not mine. It would appear, from this proposition (about the
+grammatical interpretation of which, however, I admit there are
+difficulties), that Mr. Gladstone holds that the "local civil
+government and its following among the wealthy," were ethnically
+different from the "general population." On p. 348, he further admits
+that the "wealthy and the local governing power" were friendly to the
+Romans. Are we then to suppose that it was the persons of Jewish
+"ethnical character" who favoured the Romans, while those of Gentile
+"ethnical character" were opposed to them? But, if that supposition is
+absurd, the only alternative is that the local civil government was
+ethnically Gentile. This is exactly my contention.
+
+At pp. 379 to 391 of the essay on "The Keepers of the Herd of Swine" I
+have fully discussed the question of the ethnical character of the
+general population. I have shown that, according to Josephus, who
+surely ought to have known, Gadara was as much a Gentile city as
+Ptolemais; I have proved that he includes Gadara amongst the cities
+"that rose up against the Jews that were amongst them," which is a
+pretty definite expression of his belief that the "ethnical character
+of the general population" was Gentile. There is no question here of
+Jews of the Roman party fighting with Jews of the Zealot party, as Mr.
+Gladstone suggests. It is the non-Jewish and anti-Jewish general
+population which rises up against the Jews who had settled "among
+them."
+
+PROP. 3. _His one item of direct evidence as to the Gentile character
+of the city refers only to the former and not to the latter_.
+
+More fatal still. But, once more, not to me. I adduce not one, but a
+variety of "items" in proof of the non-Judaic character of the
+population of Gadara: the evidence of history; that of the coinage of
+the city; the direct testimony of Josephus, just cited--to mention no
+others. I repeat, if the wealthy people and those connected with
+them--the "classes" and the "hangers on" of Mr. Gladstone's
+well-known taxonomy--were, as he appears to admit they were, Gentiles;
+if the "civil government" of the city was in their hands, as the
+coinage proves it was; what becomes of Mr. Gladstone's original
+proposition in "The Impregnable Rock of Scripture" that "the
+population of Gadara, and still less (if less may be) the population
+of the neighbourhood," were "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law"? And
+what is the importance of estimating the precise proportion of Hebrews
+who may have resided, either in the city of Gadara or in its
+independent territory, when, as Mr. Gladstone now seems to admit (I am
+careful to say "seems"), the government, and consequently the law,
+which ruled in that territory and defined civil right and wrong was
+Gentile and not Judaic? But perhaps Mr. Gladstone is prepared to
+maintain that the Gentile "local civil government" of a city of the
+Decapolis administered Jewish law; and showed their respect for it,
+more particularly, by stamping their coinage with effigies of the
+Emperors.
+
+In point of fact, in his haste to attribute to me errors which I have
+not committed, Mr. Gladstone has given away his case.
+
+PROP. 4. _He fatally confounds the question of political party with
+those of nationality and of religion, and assumes that those who took
+the side of Rome in the factions that prevailed could not be subject
+to the Mosaic Law_.
+
+It would seem that I have a feline tenacity of life; once more, a
+"fatal error." But Mr. Gladstone has forgotten an excellent rule of
+controversy; say what is true, of course, but mind that it is decently
+probable. Now it is not decently probable, hardly indeed conceivable,
+that any one who has read Josephus, or any other historian of the
+Jewish war, should be unaware that there were Jews (of whom Josephus
+himself was one) who "Romanised" and, more or less openly, opposed the
+war party. But, however that may be, I assert that Mr. Gladstone
+neither has produced, nor can produce, a passage of my writing which
+affords the slightest foundation for this particular article of his
+indictment.
+
+PROP. 5. _His examination of the text of Josephus is alike one-sided,
+inadequate, and erroneous._
+
+Easy to say, hard to prove. So long as the authorities whom I have
+cited are on my side, I do not know why this singularly temperate and
+convincing dictum should trouble me. I have yet to become acquainted
+with Mr. Gladstone's claims to speak with an authority equal to that
+of scholars of the rank of Schuerer, whose obviously just and necessary
+emendations he so unceremoniously pooh-poohs.
+
+PROP. 6. _Finally, he sets aside, on grounds not critical or
+historical, but partly subjective, the primary historical testimony on
+the subject, namely, that of the three Synoptic Evangelists, who
+write as contemporaries and deal directly with the subject, neither of
+which is done by any other authority_.
+
+Really this is too much! The fact is, as anybody can see who will turn
+to my article of February 1889 [VII. _supra_], out of which all this
+discussion has arisen, that the arguments upon which I rest the
+strength of my case touching the swine-miracle, are exactly
+"historical" and "critical." Expressly, and in words that cannot be
+misunderstood, I refuse to rest on what Mr. Gladstone calls
+"subjective" evidence. I abstain from denying the possibility of the
+Gadarene occurrence, and I even go so far as to speak of some physical
+analogies to possession. In fact, my quondam opponent, Dr. Wace,
+shrewdly, but quite fairly, made the most of these admissions; and
+stated that I had removed the only "consideration which would have
+been a serious obstacle" in the way of his belief in the Gadarene
+story.[114]
+
+So far from setting aside the authority of the synoptics on
+"subjective" grounds, I have taken a great deal of trouble to show
+that my non-belief in the story is based upon what appears to me to be
+evident; firstly, that the accounts of the three synoptic Gospels are
+not independent, but are founded upon a common source; secondly, that,
+even if the story of the common tradition proceeded from a
+contemporary, it would still be worthy of very little credit, seeing
+the manner in which the legends about mediaeval miracles have been
+propounded by contemporaries. And in illustration of this position I
+wrote a special essay about the miracles reported by Eginhard.[115]
+
+In truth, one need go no further than Mr. Gladstone's sixth
+proposition to be convinced that contemporary testimony, even of
+well-known and distinguished persons, may be but a very frail reed for
+the support of the historian, when theological prepossession blinds
+the witness.[116]
+
+PROP. 7. _And he treats the entire question, in the narrowed form in
+which it arises upon secular testimony, as if it were capable of a
+solution so clear and summary as to warrant the use of the extremest
+weapons of controversy against those who presume to differ from him._
+
+The six heretical propositions which have gone before are enunciated
+with sufficient clearness to enable me to prove, without any
+difficulty, that, whosesoever they are, they are not mine. But number
+seven, I confess, is too hard for me. I cannot undertake to contradict
+that which I do not understand.
+
+What is the "entire question" which "arises" in a "narrowed form" upon
+"secular testimony"? After much guessing, I am fain to give up the
+conundrum. The "question" may be the ownership of the pigs; or the
+ethnological character of the Gadarenes; or the propriety of meddling
+with other people's property without legal warrant. And each of these
+questions might be so "narrowed" when it arose on "secular testimony"
+that I should not know where I was. So I am silent on this part of the
+proposition.
+
+But I do dimly discern, in the latter moiety of this mysterious
+paragraph, a reproof of that use of "the extremest weapons of
+controversy" which is attributed to me. Upon which I have to observe
+that I guide myself, in such matters, very much by the maxim of a
+great statesman, "Do ut des." If Mr. Gladstone objects to the
+employment of such weapons of defence, he would do well to abstain
+from them in attack. He should not frame charges which he has,
+afterwards, to admit are erroneous, in language of carefully
+calculated offensiveness ("Impregnable Rock," pp. 269-70); he should
+not assume that persons with whom he disagrees are so recklessly
+unconscientious as to evade the trouble of inquiring what has been
+said or known about a grave question ("Impregnable Rock," p. 273); he
+should not qualify the results of careful thought as "hand-over-head
+reasoning" ("Impregnable Rock," p. 274); he should not, as in the
+extraordinary propositions which I have just analysed, make assertions
+respecting his opponent's position and arguments which are
+contradicted by the plainest facts.
+
+Persons who, like myself, have spent their lives outside the political
+world, yet take a mild and philosophical concern in what goes on in
+it, often find it difficult to understand what our neighbours call the
+psychological moment of this or that party leader, and are,
+occasionally, loth to believe in the seeming conditions of certain
+kinds of success. And when some chieftain, famous in political
+warfare, adventures into the region of letters or of science, in full
+confidence that the methods which have brought fame and honour in his
+own province will answer there, he is apt to forget that he will be
+judged by these people, on whom rhetorical artifices have long ceased
+to take effect; and to whom mere dexterity in putting together
+cleverly ambiguous phrases, and even the great art of offensive
+misrepresentation, are unspeakably wearisome. And, if that weariness
+finds its expression in sarcasm, the offender really has no right to
+cry out. Assuredly ridicule is no test of truth, but it is the
+righteous meed of some kinds of error. Nor ought the attempt to
+confound the expression of a revolted sense of fair dealing with
+arrogant impatience of contradiction, to restrain those to whom "the
+extreme weapons of controversy" come handy from using them. The
+function of police in the intellectual, if not in the civil, economy
+may sometimes be legitimately discharged by volunteers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some time ago in one of the many criticisms with which I am favoured,
+I met with the remark that, at our time of life, Mr. Gladstone and I
+might be better occupied than in fighting over the Gadarene pigs. And,
+if these too famous swine were the only parties to the suit, I, for my
+part, should fully admit the justice of the rebuke. But, under the
+beneficent rule of the Court of Chancery, in former times, it was not
+uncommon, that a quarrel about a few perches of worthless land, ended
+in the ruin of ancient families and the engulfing of great estates;
+and I think that our admonisher failed to observe the analogy--to note
+the momentous consequences of the judgment which may be awarded in the
+present apparently insignificant action _in re_ the swineherds of
+Gadara.
+
+The immediate effect of such judgment will be the decision of the
+question, whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the
+demonology of the men of the first century, as divinely revealed
+truth, or to reject it, as degrading falsity. The reverend Principal
+of King's College has delivered his judgment in perfectly clear and
+candid terms. Two years since, Dr. Wace said that he believed the
+story as it stands; and consequently he holds, as a part of divine
+revelation, that the spiritual world comprises devils, who, under
+certain circumstances, may enter men and be transferred from them to
+four-footed beasts. For the distinguished Anglican Divine and Biblical
+scholar, that is part and parcel of the teachings respecting the
+spiritual world which we owe to the founder of Christianity. It is an
+inseparable part of that Christian orthodoxy which, if a man rejects,
+he is to be considered and called an "infidel." According to the
+ordinary rules of interpretation of language, Mr. Gladstone must hold
+the same view.
+
+If antiquity and universality are valid tests of the truth of any
+belief, no doubt this is one of the beliefs so certified. There are no
+known savages, nor people sunk in the ignorance of partial
+civilisation, who do not hold them. The great majority of Christians
+have held them and still hold them. Moreover the oldest records we
+possess of the early conceptions of mankind in Egypt and in
+Mesopotamia prove that exactly such demonology, as is implied in the
+Gadarene story, formed the substratum, and, among the early Accadians,
+apparently the greater part, of their supposed knowledge of the
+spiritual world. M. Lenormant's profoundly interesting work on
+Babylonian magic and the magical texts given in the Appendix to
+Professor Sayce's "Hibbert Lectures" leave no doubt on this head. They
+prove that the doctrine of possession, and even the particular case of
+pig, possession,[117] were firmly believed in by the Egyptians and the
+Mesopotamians before the tribes of Israel invaded Palestine. And it is
+evident that these beliefs, from some time after the exile and
+probably much earlier, completely interpenetrated the Jewish mind, and
+thus became inseparably interwoven with the fabric of the synoptic
+Gospels.
+
+Therefore, behind the question of the acceptance of the doctrines of
+the oldest heathen demonology as part of the fundamental beliefs of
+Christianity, there lies the question of the credibility of the
+Gospels, and of their claim to act as our instructors, outside that
+ethical province in which they appeal to the consciousness of all
+thoughtful men. And still, behind this problem, there lies
+another--how far do these ancient records give a sure foundation to
+the prodigious fabric of Christian dogma, which has been built upon
+them by the continuous labours of speculative theologians, during
+eighteen centuries?
+
+I submit that there are few questions before the men of the rising
+generation, on the answer to which the future hangs more fatally, than
+this. We are at the parting of the ways. Whether the twentieth century
+shall see a recrudescence of the superstitions of mediaeval papistry,
+or whether it shall witness the severance of the living body of the
+ethical ideal of prophetic Israel from the carcase, foul with savage
+superstitions and cankered with false philosophy, to which the
+theologians have bound it, turns upon their final judgment of the
+Gadarene tale.
+
+The gravity of the problems ultimately involved in the discussion of
+the legend of Gadara will, I hope, excuse a persistence in returning
+to the subject, to which I should not have been moved by merely
+personal considerations.
+
+With respect to the diluvial invective which overflowed thirty-three
+pages of the "Nineteenth Century" last January, I doubt not that it
+has a catastrophic importance in the estimation of its author. I, on
+the other hand, may be permitted to regard it as a mere spate; noisy
+and threatening while it lasted, but forgotten almost as soon as it
+was over. Without my help, it will be judged by every instructed and
+clear-headed reader; and that is fortunate, because, were aid
+necessary, I have cogent reasons for withholding it.
+
+In an article characterised by the same qualities of thought and
+diction, entitled "A Great Lesson," which appeared in the "Nineteenth
+Century" for September 1887, the Duke of Argyll, firstly, charged the
+whole body of men of science, interested in the question, with having
+conspired to ignore certain criticisms of Mr. Darwin's theory of the
+origin of coral reefs; and, secondly, he asserted that some person
+unnamed had "actually induced" Mr. John Murray to delay the
+publication of his views on that subject "for two years."
+
+It was easy for me and for others to prove that the first statement
+was not only, to use the Duke of Argyll's favourite expression,
+"contrary to fact," but that it was without any foundation whatever.
+The second statement rested on the Duke of Argyll's personal
+authority. All I could do was to demand the production of the evidence
+for it. Up to the present time, so far as I know, that evidence has
+not made its appearance; nor has there been any withdrawal of, or
+apology for, the erroneous charge.
+
+Under these circumstances most people will understand why the Duke of
+Argyll may feel quite secure of having the battle all to himself,
+whenever it pleases him to attack me.
+
+[See the note at the end of "Hasisadra's Adventure" (vol iv. p. 283).
+The discussion on coral reefs, at the meeting of the British
+Association this year, proves that Mr. Darwin's views are defended
+now, as strongly as in 1891, by highly competent authorities. October
+25, 1893.]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+    [107] _Nineteenth Century_, February 1891, pp. 339-40.
+
+    [108] Neither is it of any consequence whether the locality
+          of the supposed miracle was Gadara, or Gerasa, or
+          Gergesa. But I may say that I was well acquainted with
+          Origen's opinion respecting Gergesa. It is fully
+          discussed and rejected in Riehm's _Handwoerterbuch_. In
+          Kitto's _Biblical Cyclopaedia_ (ii. p. 51) Professor
+          Porter remarks that Origen merely "_conjectures_" that
+          Gergesa was indicated: and he adds, "Now, in a question
+          of this kind conjectures cannot be admitted. We must
+          implicitly follow the most ancient and creditable
+          testimony, which clearly pronounces in favour of
+          Gadarenhon. This reading is adopted by Tischendorf,
+          Alford, and Tregelles."
+
+    [109] I may call attention, in passing, to the fact that this
+          authority, at any rate, has no sort of doubt of the
+          fact that Jewish Law did not rule in Gadara (indeed,
+          under the head of "Gadara," in the same work, it is
+          expressly stated that the population of the place
+          consisted "predominantly of heathens"), and that he
+          scouts the notion that the Gadarene swineherds were
+          Jews.
+
+    [110] The evidence adduced, so far as post-exile times are
+          concerned, appears to me insufficient to prove this
+          assertion.
+
+    [111] Even Leviticus xi. 26, cited without reference to the
+          context, will not serve the purpose; because the swine
+          _is_ "cloven-footed" (Lev. xi. 7).
+
+    [112] 1st Gospel: "And the devils _besought him_, saying,
+          If Thou cast us out send us away _into_ the herd of
+          swine." 2d Gospel: "They _besought him_, saying, Send
+          us _into_ the swine." 3d Gospel: "They _intreated him_
+          that he would give them leave to enter _into_ them."
+
+    [113] See Marquardt, _Roemische Staatsverwaltung_, Bd. III.
+          p. 408.
+
+    [114] _Nineteenth Century_, March 1889 (p. 362).
+
+    [115] "The Value of Witness to the Miraculous." _Nineteenth
+          Century_, March 1889.
+
+    [116] I cannot ask the Editor of this Review to reprint pages
+          of an old article,--but the following passages
+          sufficiently illustrate the extent and the character of
+          the discrepancy between the facts of the case and Mr.
+          Gladstone's account of them:--
+
+          "Now, in the Gadarene affair, I do not think I am
+          unreasonably sceptical if I say that the existence of
+          demons who can be transferred from a man to a pig does
+          thus contravene probability. Let me be perfectly
+          candid. I admit I have no _a priori_ objection to
+          offer.... I declare, as plainly as I can, that I am
+          unable to show cause why these transferable devils
+          should not exist." ... ("Agnosticism," _Nineteenth
+          Century_, 1889, p. 177).
+
+          "What then do we know about the originator, or
+          originators, of this groundwork--of that threefold
+          tradition which all three witnesses (in Paley's phrase)
+          agree upon--that we should allow their mere statements
+          to outweigh the counter arguments of humanity, of
+          common sense, of exact science, and to imperil the
+          respect which all would be glad to be able to render to
+          their Master?" (_ibid._ p. 175).
+
+          I then go on through a couple of pages to discuss the
+          value of the evidence of the synoptics on critical and
+          historical grounds. Mr. Gladstone cites the essay from
+          which these passages are taken, whence I suppose he has
+          read it; though it may be that he shares the impatience
+          of Cardinal Manning where my writings are concerned.
+          Such impatience will account for, though it will not
+          excuse, his sixth proposition.
+
+    [117] The wicked, before being annihilated, returned to the
+          world to disturb men; they entered into the body of
+          unclean animals, "often that of a pig, as on the
+          Sarcophagus of Seti I. in the Soane
+          Museum."--Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic,_ p. 88, Editorial
+          Note.
+
+
+END OF VOL. V
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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+THOMAS H. HUXLEY'S WORKS.
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+Collected. Essays, 12mo, cloth, $1.25 per volume.
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+     By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A.,
+     Professor of the Harmony of Science and Revelation, Oberlin College;
+     Author of "The Logic of Christian Evidences,"
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+     Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
+
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+
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+
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+PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA.
+     Sketches of their Lives and Scientific Work.
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+
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+     possible, something of their personal characteristics. This
+     information, often very difficult to obtain, has been
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+
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+
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+
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+PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION, from Thales to Huxley.
+     By EDWARD CLODD, President of the Folk-Lore Society;
+     Author of "The Story of Creation,"
+     "The Story of 'Primitive' Man," etc.
+     With Portraits. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.
+
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+
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+     is always well informed, and he says what he has to say with
+     clearness and precision.... The interest intensifies as Mr.
+     Clodd attempts to show the part really played in the growth
+     of the doctrine of evolution by men like Wallace, Darwin,
+     Huxley, and Spencer.... We commend the book to those who
+     want to know what evolution really means."--_London Times_.
+
+     "This is a book which was needed.... Altogether, the book
+     could hardly be better done. It is luminous, lucid, orderly,
+     and temperate. Above all, it is entirely free from personal
+     partisanship. Each chief actor is sympathetically treated,
+     and friendship is seldom or never allowed to overweight
+     sound judgment."--_London Academy_.
+
+     "We can assure the reader that he will find in this work a
+     very useful guide to the lives and labors of leading
+     evolutionists of the past and present. Especially
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+     share in rediscovering evolution, and illustrating its
+     relations to the whole field of human knowledge. His
+     forcible style and wealth of metaphor make all that Mr.
+     Clodd writes arrestive and interesting."--_London Literary
+     World_.
+
+     "Can not but prove welcome to fair-minded men.... To read it
+     is to have an object-lesson in the meaning of evolution....
+     There is no better book on the subject for the general
+     reader.... No one could go through the book without being
+     both refreshed and newly instructed by its masterly survey
+     of the growth of the most powerful idea of modern
+     times."--_The Scotsman_.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
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+     and with some important Additions. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
+
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+     last year. The author reviews criticisms upon the first
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+     incarnation, admits his doubts of the physical resurrection
+     of Christ, and his belief in evolution. The volume is to be
+     marked as one of the most profound expressions of the modern
+     movement toward broader theological positions."--_Brooklyn
+     Times_.
+
+     "He does not write with the animus of the destructive
+     school; he intends to be, and honestly believes he is, doing
+     a work of construction, or at least of reconstruction.... He
+     writes with manifest earnestness and conviction, and in a
+     style which is always clear and energetic."--_Churchman_.
+
+HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
+     By Dr. JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER.
+     12mo. Cloth, $1.75.
+
+     "The key-note to this volume is found in the antagonism
+     between the progressive tendencies of the human mind and the
+     pretensions of ecclesiastical authority, as developed in the
+     history of modern science. No previous writer has treated
+     the subject from this point of view, and the present
+     monograph will be found to possess no less originality of
+     conception than vigor of reasoning and wealth of
+     erudition."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+A CRITICAL HISTORY OF FREE THOUGHT IN REFERENCE TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
+     By Rev. Canon ADAM STOREY FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., etc.
+     12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
+
+     "A conflict might naturally be anticipated between the
+     reasoning faculties of man and a religion which claims the
+     right, on superhuman authority, to impose limits on the
+     field or manner of their exercise. It is the chief of the
+     movements of free thought which it is my purpose to
+     describe, in their historic succession, and their connection
+     with intellectual causes. We must ascertain the facts,
+     discover the causes, and read the moral."--_The Author_.
+
+CREATION OR EVOLUTION? A Philosophical Inquiry.
+     By GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS,
+     12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
+
+     "A treatise on the great question of Creation or Evolution
+     by one who is neither a naturalist nor theologian, and who
+     does not profess to bring to the discussion a special
+     equipment in either of the sciences which the controversy
+     arrays against each other, may seem strange at first sight;
+     but Mr. Curtis will satisfy the reader, before many pages
+     have been turned, that he has a substantial contribution to
+     make to the debate, and that his book is one to be treated
+     with respect. His part is to apply to the reasonings of the
+     men of science the rigid scrutiny with which the lawyer is
+     accustomed to test the value and pertinency of testimony,
+     and the legitimacy of inferences from established
+     facts."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+     "Mr. Curtis's book is honorably distinguished from a sadly
+     too great proportion of treatises which profess to discuss
+     the relation of scientific theories to religion, by its
+     author's thorough acquaintance with his subject, his
+     scrupulous fairness, and remarkable freedom from
+     passion."--_London Literary World_.
+
+D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue, New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY.
+A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.
+     By ANDREW D. WHITE, LL.D., late President and
+     Professor of History at Cornell University.
+     In two volumes. 8vo. Cloth, $5.00.
+
+     "The story of the struggle of searchers after truth with the
+     organized forces of ignorance, bigotry, and superstition is
+     the most inspiring chapter in the whole history of mankind.
+     That story has never been better told than by the
+     ex-President of Cornell University in these two volumes....
+     A wonderful story it is that he tells."--_London Daily
+     Chronicle_.
+
+     "A literary event of prime importance is the appearance of
+     'A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
+     Christendom.'"--_Philadelphia Press_.
+
+     "Such an honest and thorough treatment of the subject in all
+     its bearings that it will carry weight and be accepted as an
+     authority in tracing the process by which the scientific
+     method has come to be supreme in modern thought and
+     life."--_Boston Herald_.
+
+     "A great work of a great man upon great subjects, and will
+     always be a religio-scientific classic."--_Chicago Evening
+     Post_.
+
+     "It is graphic, lucid, even-tempered--never bitter nor
+     vindictive. No student of human progress should fail to read
+     these volumes. While they have about them the fascination of
+     a well-told tale, they are also crowded with the facts of
+     history that have had a tremendous bearing upon the
+     development of the race."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
+
+     "The same liberal spirit that marked his public life is seen
+     in the pages of his book, giving it a zest and interest that
+     can not fail to secure for it hearty commendation and honest
+     praise."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger_.
+
+     "A conscientious summary of the body of learning to which it
+     relates accumulated during long years of research.... A
+     monument of industry."--_N.Y. Evening Post_.
+
+     "A work which constitutes in many ways the most instructive
+     review that has ever been written of the evolution of human
+     knowledge in its conflict with dogmatic belief.... As a
+     contribution to the literature of liberal thought, the book
+     is one the importance of which can not be easily
+     overrated."--_Boston Beacon_.
+
+     "The most valuable contribution that has yet been made to
+     the history of the conflicts between the theologists and the
+     scientists."--_Buffalo Commercial_.
+
+     "Undoubtedly the most exhaustive treatise which has been
+     written on this subject.... Able, scholarly, critical,
+     impartial in tone and exhaustive in treatment."--_Boston
+     Advertiser_.
+
+New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A NEW BOOK BY PROF. GROOS.
+
+THE PLAY OF MAN.
+     By KARL GROOS, Professor of Philosophy in the University of
+     Basel, and author of "The Play of Animals." Translated, with
+     the author's cooperation, by Elizabeth L. Baldwin, and
+     edited, with a Preface and Appendix, by Prof. J. Mark
+     Baldwin, of Princeton University. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50 net;
+     postage, 12 cents additional.
+
+     The results of Professor Groos's original and acute
+     investigations are of peculiar value to those who are
+     interested in psychology and sociology, and they are of
+     great importance to educators. He presents the
+     anthropological aspects of the subject treated in his
+     psychological study of the Play of Animals, which has
+     already become a classic. Professor Groos, who agrees with
+     the followers of Weismann, develops the great importance of
+     the child's play as tending to strengthen his inheritance in
+     the acquisition of adaptations to his environment. The
+     influence of play on character, and its relation to
+     education, are suggestively indicated. The playful
+     manifestations affecting the child himself and those
+     affecting his relations to others have been carefully
+     classified, and the reader is led from the simpler exercises
+     of the sensory apparatus through a variety of divisions to
+     inner imitations and social play. The biological, aesthetic,
+     ethical, and pedagogical standpoints receive much attention
+     from the investigator. While this book is an illuminating
+     contribution to scientific literature, it is of eminently
+     practical value. Its illustrations and lessons will be
+     studied and applied by educators, and the importance of this
+     original presentation of a most fertile subject will be
+     appreciated by parents as well as by those who are
+     interested as general students of sociological and
+     psychological themes.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Collected Essays, Volume V, by T. H. Huxley
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