1

-the second of the theological positions which, as we have seen, the author of Natural Religion assumes to be discredited by physical science. No doubt he had in his mind what has been so strongly stated by the late Mr. Mill: "Not even on the most distorted and contracted theory of good, which ever was framed by religious or philosophical fanaticism, can the government of Nature be made to resemble the work of a being at once good and omnipotent." Now there can be no question that physical nature gives the lie to that shallow optimism which prates of the best of all conceivable worlds, and hardly consents to recognize evil, save as a "lower form of good"; unquestionably recent researches of physicists have brought out with quite startling clearness what St. Paul calls the subjection of the creature to vanity. Ruin, waste, decay, are written upon every feature of the natural order. All that is joyful in it is refer to Bishop Butler's striking chapter on The Moral Government of God (Analogy, Part I. c. iii.) I will here merely observe that although, doubtless, God's attribute is Love of the creation, He is not only Love, but Sanctity, Justice, Creative Power, Force, Providence; and whereas, considered as a Unit He is infinite, He is not infinite-I speak under correction-viewed in those aspects, abstractions, or attributes which, separately taken, are necessary for our subjective view of Him. I allow that God's power and His "benevolence" may in some cases work out different ends, as if separate entities, but still maintain-what the author of Natural Religion ignores-that God in His very essence is not only "Benevolence," but Sanctity, and the rest also; all as One in His Oneness. 1 Three Essays on Religion, p. 38.

CHAP. IV.] SCIENCE AND DIVINE GOODNESS.

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based on suffering; all that lives, on death; every thrill of pleasure which we receive from the phenomenal world is the outcome of inconceivable agonies during incalculable periods of time. But how does this discredit the teaching of theology as to God's goodness? Theology recognizes, and recognizes far more fully than the mere physicist, the abounding misery that is in the world, the terribleness of that "unutterable curse which hangs upon mankind," for it sees not only what he sees, but what is infinitely sadder and more appalling, the vision of moral evil presented by the heart and conscience of man, by every page in the history of the individual and of the race. It was not reserved for professors of physical science in the nineteenth century to bring to light the fact that "the world is out of joint," and thereby to discredit the theological view of the universe. Theology knows only too well that life is "a dread machinery of sin and sorrow." It is the very existence of the vast aboriginal calamity, whatever it may have been, in which the human race, the whole creation, is involved, that forms the ground for the need of the revelation which Christianity professes to bring. If there were no evil, there would be no need of a deliverance from evil. Of course, why evil has been suffered to arise, why it is suffered to exist, by the Perfect Being, of whom it is truly said that He is God, because he is the highest Good, we know not, and no search will make us know. All

we know is that it is not from Him, of whom, and for whom, and by whom, are all things; "because it has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance." I shall have to return to the subject hereafter. For the present it must suffice to remark that while the existence of evil is a mystery-one of the countless mysteries surrounding human life-which, after the best use of reason, must be put aside as beyond reason it is also a fact, and a fact which is so far from discrediting the theological view of the universe, that it is a primary and necessary element of that view.

Thus much as to physical science and the propositions in which the author of Natural Religion supposes the theological view of the universe to be summed up. But, as he notes, the case of Modern Thought against Christianity does not rest merely upon physical science, properly so called, but upon the extension of its methods to the whole domain of knowledge (p. 7), the practical effect being the reduction of religion to superstition, of anthropology to physiology, of metaphysics to physics, of ethics to the result of temperament or the promptings of self-interest, of man's personality to the summation of a series of dynamic conditions

1 See pp. 257-259 and p. 330.

CHAP. IV.] THE ISSUE BEFORE THE WORLD.

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of particles of matter. issue before the world is between Christianity and a more or less sublimated form of Materialism, which is most aptly termed Naturalism; a system which rejects as antiquated the ideas of final causes, of Providence, of the soul and its immortality; which allows of no other realities than those of the physical order, and makes of Nature man's highest ideal: and this issue is not in the least affected by decking out Naturalism in some borrowed garments of Spiritualism, and calling it "Natural Christianity," however skilfully the travesty be made.

It seems to me that the

It is not indeed to the phrase itself, but to this use of it, that I take exception. Tertullian speaks of Natural Christianity -"testimonium animæ naturaliter Christianæ "; and we may safely agree with Theodore Parker: "so far as a man has real religion, so far has he Christianity." I say this without any wish to disparage the great nonChristian systems which have done, and are doing, so much to meet the religious wants of human nature. There is a sense in which Mr. Herbert Spencer's words seem to me to be unquestionably true: "Speaking generally the religion current in each age, and among each people, has been as near an approximation to the truth as it was possible, then and there, for them to receive." Truths there are, religious and ethical, with which the human conscience cannot dispense. And it is as 1 First Principles § 32.

the repositories, the sanctuaries of these primary verities that the lower forms of religion have lasted for so many ages, and are with us unto this day. But whatever advance they may still be making in particular states of civilisation, it seems not temerarious to affirm that their vitality is almost exhausted, their part well-nigh played. Their power of development is spent, and, as soon as an idea ceases to develop, it begins to die. Few, I take it, would gravely argue that either Buddhism or Mohammedanism-the only two religions besides Christianity which so much as claim universality-is likely seriously to dispute the future of the world with Christianity. But, as in the inquiry which I have undertaken it is of the utmost importance that I should be quite accurate and quite frank, it will be better for me, in what I am immediately about to write, to deal specially with that form of the Christian religion which the Catholic Church presents. In the first place Catholicity is a precise and definite term, which Christianity is not. As Auguste Comte remarks: "Every one knows what a Catholic is, whilst the best intellect dares not flatter himself that he comprehends what a Christian is; for a Christian may belong indefinitely to any one of the thousand incoherent shades which separate primitive Lutheranism from actual Deism."1 I may be able-I think I am able-to give a reason

1 Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. v. p. 299.