SCIENCE AND

6

o

CHRISTIAN TRADITION

ESSAYS

BY

THOMAS H. HUXLEY

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1899

Authorized Edition.

II ^O

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 overstepped, 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 tliat which
I felt able and called upon to do ; and I have done it with-
out 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 ex-
hibit 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 oldf

" 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 con-
struction ; because I do not believe that the time has come
for it. Our present business is with inward preparation,

V

vi PREFACE

especially the preparation of those who have ceased to be
content with the old, and find no satisfaction in half meas-
ures. 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." *

So wrote one of the protagonists of the New
Eeformation and a well-abused man if ever
there was one a score of years since, in the re-
markable book in which he discusses the negative
and the positive results of the rigorous application
of scientific metliod to the investigation of the
higher problems of human life.

Eecent 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 profit-
able 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 possi-
bility that my motives in writing the essays, con-
tained in this and the preceding volume, were not
exactly those that they ascribe to me.

* D. F. Strauss, Der alte und der neue Glauhe (1872), pp.
9,10.

PREFACE vii

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 de-
cline 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.

Tlie 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

viii PREFACE

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 indefeas-
ible right of way, before me stood the thorny
barrier with its comminatory notice-board " isFo
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 legiti-
mate 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 justifi-
cation 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

PREFACE ix

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 tra-
ditional 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 sceva 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 archa9ologically interesting, but of no
other moment. And some fragment of the super-
fluous energy accumulated is apt to find vent in
strong language.

X PREFACE

Such, I suppose, was my case, when I wrote
some passages which occur in an essay reprinted
among " Darwiniana." * 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, v/ith 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 impossi-
bilities," and " to force the generous new wine of
science into the old bottles of Judaism."

* Collected Essays, vol. ii., " On the Origin of Species "
(18G0).

PREFACE XI

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 Christi-
anity contained in the second chapter of Genesis, if
you will; the new ecclesiasticism undertakes to un-
derpin the superstructure and make it, at any rate
to the eye, as firm as ever: but let him be anathema
wdio 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 per-
missible 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 whv all this more recent coil about
the Gadarene swine and the like? Do you pre-
tend 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

xii PREFACE

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 con-
vinced of my own ntter ignorance about a great
number of things, respecting which the great ma-
jority 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 at-
tacking anybody or anything?

Yet, if I had made the most wanton and arro-
gant onslaught on the honest convictions of other
people, I could not have been more hardly dealt
with. The pentecostal charism, I believe, ex-
hausted itself amongst the earliest disciples. Yet
any one who has had to attend, as I have done, to
copious objurgations, strewn with such appella-
tions as " infidel '' and " coward," must be a
hardened sceptic indeed if he doubts the exist-
ence 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 inci-
dents of all controversies, in which one party has
acquired the mental peculiarities which are gener-
ated 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

PREFACE xiii

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 Gada-
rene 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 prac-
tical consequences deducible from human rela-
tions 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 ade-
quate 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

xiv PREFACE

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
joractice 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 know^ledge 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 inter-
fere, 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

PREFACE XV

been given over, since the Fall, to the influence
of wicked and malignant spiritual beings, gov-
erned 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 mani-
fested, that he might destroy the works of the
devil." *

The half-hearted religiosity of latter-day Chris-
tianity 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 founda-
tion; 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

* 1 John ill. 8.

xvi PKEFACE

\vlio 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 judg-
ment 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 differ-
ent 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 occur-
rences was the transmigration of certain devils
from tlie man into the pigs. And again, it is one

PKEFACE xvii

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 afhrm 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 ABC 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 con-
sideration.* But, even ecclesiastical tradition does
not assert that either " Mark " or " Luke '' wrote
from his own knowledge indeed " Luke " ex-
pressly 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

* 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.

^ 115

xviii PREFACE

matters knows, questions still hotly disputed, and
with regard to which the extant evidence can
hardly carry an impartial judge beyond the admis-
sion 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 dis-
cussed, in works accessible to, and intelligible by,
every English reader,* 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 con-
ceive, must be admitted if the facts are accepted.

* Nowhere more concisely and clearly than in Dr. Suth-
erland Black's article " Gospels " in Chambers's EncyclopcB-
dia. References are given to the more elaborate discus-
sions of the problem.

PREFACE xix

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 por-
tions, 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

XX PKEFACE

unlike the brief and pregnant utterances of Jesns
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 pre-
sents 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 anah'zed into four components. The first of
these consists of passages, to a greater or less ex-
tent 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.

&. 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

PREFACE xxi

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 tvjofuld
traditions, and one peculiar tradition. If the
Gospels were the work of totally independent
writers, it would follow that there are three wit-
nesses 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 ex-
tremely instructive little book, Abbott and Rush-
brooke's " Common Tradition ^' he will easily
satisfy himself that " ]\Iark '' 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 thou-
sand; 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

xxii PREFACE

tradition, or the matter common to all three Gos-
pels; 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 com-
ponents 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.

YIL 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 sim-
ply 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 tliree have drawn
from a common source; that is to say, from one

PREFACE xxiii

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 (&)
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 him-
self 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 ac-
quired 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 unin-
telligible, 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

xxiv PREFACE

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 men-
tioning? 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 Jiis
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.

h. 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 his-

PREFACE xxv

torical 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 be-
lieve 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 no-
tice " 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 three-
fold 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,
G/eece, 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.*

* Those who regard the Apocalyptic discourse as a " vati-
cination after the event " may draw conchisions therefrom
as to the date of the Gospels in which its several forms
occnr. But the assumption is surely dangerous, from an
apologetic point of view, since it begs tlie question as to the
unhistorical character of this solemn prophecy.

XX vi PREFACE

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 com-
piled 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 doc-
trine. He might be a rigidly monotheistic Judaso-
Christian, and consider himself bound by the
law: he might be a Gentile Pauline convert, nei-
ther 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,* could accept

* See p. 287 of this volume.

PREFACE xxvii

" 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 dog-
matically colourless character, as compared with
the Gospels of " Luke " and " Matthew."

XI. " Mark," as we have seen, contains a rela-
tively small body of ethical and religious in-
struction and only a few parables. Were these
all that existed in the primitive threefold tradi-
tion? Were none others current in the Roman
communities, at the time " Mark " wrote, suppos-
ing he wrote in Eome? 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 ex-
clusively to " Matthew " and " Luke," and are
also found in their sino;le traditions? Manv 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 every-
body translated them as he could.

Here is the old difficulty again. If such ma-
terials were known to " Mark," what imaginable
reason could he have for not using them? Surely
displacement of the long episode of John the Bap-

xxviii PREFACE

tist 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
pedissequvs et hreviator 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, espe-
cially after the Jewish war of a. d. 66-70, may
have found themselves in possession of very dif-
ferent traditional materials. Many circumstances

PREFACE xxix

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 them-
selves; and, under the influence of converts im-
bued more or less with the philosophical specula-
tions 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 diffi-
cult 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 three-
fold tradition presents us with a narrative be-
lieved to be historically true, in all its particulars,
by the major part, if not the whole, of the Chris-
tian communities. That narrative is penetrated,
from beginning to end, by the demonological be-
liefs 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 re-
tires into the background, it is none the less there.

XXX PREFACE

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 con-
clusion 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 con-
sistently consider the testimony of the Grospels to
be unimpeachable in respect of the information
they give us respecting other matters which ap-
pertain 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

PREFACE xxxi

four gospels. Until such evidence is brought for-
ward, 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 un-
satisfactory 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 insolu-
ble, 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 or-
ganization, M'hich in their broad features cer-
tainly existed, and were in a state of rapid devel-
opment, within a hundred ^^ars of the crucifixion
of Jesus; and which have steadily prevailed

XXXii xxvJiir ACE

against all rivals, among the most intelligent and
civilized nations in the world ever since, is, and
always has been, profoundly interesting; and, con-
sidering how recent the really scientific study of
that problem, and how great the progress made
during the last half century in supplying the con-
ditions for a positive solution of the problem, I
cannot doubt that the attainment of such a solu-
tion 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 under-
taking. 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 satisfac-
tion in half measures." T. H. II.

HoDESLEA, Eastbourne,

December 4th, 1893,

CONTENTS
I

PAGE

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

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS [1889] . 160

116 xxxiii

xxxiv CONTENTS

VI

PAGE
POSSIBILITIES AXD 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] .... 306

XI

ILLUSTRATIONS OF MR. GLADSTONE'S CONTROVERSIAL

METHODS [1891] 393

PEOLOGUE

[Controverted Questions, 1892]

Le plus grand service qu'on puisse rendre a la sci-
ence 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 war-
fare, 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,

1

2 PROLOGUE I

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 con-
troversy; moreover, there is an air of unfairness
about the presentation of only one side of a dis-
cussion, and a flavour of unkindness in the repro-
duction of " winged words," which, however ap-
propriate 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; * assuring my

*With a few exceptions, which are duly noted when
they amount to more than verbal corrections.

I PROLOGUE . 3

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, dis-
regarded there is no doubt either about the im-
portance of the topics of which they treat, or as
to the public interest in the " Controverted Ques-
tions " with which they deal. Or rather, the
Controverted Question; for disconnected as these
pieces maj^, perhaps, appear to be, they are, in fact,
concerned only with diiferent aspects of a single
problem, with which thinking men have been
occupied, ever since they began seriously to con-
sider 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 perma-
nent 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 regu-
larity 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 sur-

4 PROLOGUE I

rounded and interpenetrated by another intangi-
ble and mysterious world, no more bound by fixed
rules than, as they fancied, were the thoughts and
jDassions 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 " Superna-
ture "' 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 in-
fluence 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 con-
tingency, it must doubtless be desirable to know
what may be expected to happen in the ordinary
course of things; but it must be Cjuite as neces-
sary to have some inkling of the line likely to be
taken by supernatural agencies able, and possibly
willing, to suspend or reverse that course. In-
deed, logically developed, the dualistic theory

I PROLOGUE 5

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 unconscious-
ly, 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 accumu-
lated a vast body of universally accepted knowl-
edge; and the conceptions of man and of society,
of morals and of law, based upon that knowledge.

e PROLOGUE I

are every day more and more, either openly or
tacitly, acknowledged to be the foundations of
right action.

History also tells ns 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 Eeligions. These, if we set
aside the ethical concomitants upon which natural
knowledge also has a claim, are composed of in-
formation about Supernature; they tell us of the
attributes of supernatural beings, of their rela-
tions with Nature, and of the operations by which
their interference with the ordinary course of
events can be secured or averted. It does not ap-
pear, however, that supernaturalists have attained
to any agreement about these matters, or that his-
tory indicates a widening of the influence of super-
naturalism 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 super-
natural 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

I PROLOGUE 7

submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed,
there would seem to be an inverse relation be-
tween 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 rec-
ognition.

Wliether this difference of the fortunes of
Naturalism and of Supernaturalism is an indica-
tion of the progress, or of the regress, of human-
ity; 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 dif-
ference exists and is making itself felt. Men are
growing to be seriously alive to the fact that the
historical evolution of humanity, which is gen-
erally, and I venture to think not unreasonably,
regarded as progress, has been, and is being, ac-
companied 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

8 PROLOGUE I

to Englishmen. "VVe have been more or less
occupied with it these five hundred years. And,
during that time, we have made attempts to estab-
lish a modus vivendi between the antagonists,
some of which have had a world-wide influence;
though, unfortunately, none have proved univer-
sally 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: Lol-
lards, Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians,
Socinians, and Anabaptists, whatever their dis-
agreements, concurred in the proposal to reduce
the Sujoernaturalism 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 en-
deavouring to upset the Chair of St. Peter. The
" freedom of private judgment " which they pro-
claimed, meant no more, in practice, than permis-
sion to themselves to make free with the public

I PROLOGUE 9

judgment of the Eoman Cliurch, 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 contro-
versial efficiency of the principle of biblical in-
fallibility lay in the fact that the conservative
adversaries of the Eeformers were not in a posi-
tion to contravene it without entangling them-
selves 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 posi-
tion of the Protestants. The dogma of the infalli-
bility 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

10 PROLOGUE I

was rested on that of a " primitive Church/' the
admission that the " Church " was formerly infal-
lible 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 contra-
dictory deductions; and furnish forth creeds and
confessions as diverse as the quality and the in-
formation of the intellects which exercise, and the
prejudices and passions which sway, such judg-
ments. Every sect, confident in the derivative
infallibility of its wire-drawing of infallible ma-
terials, 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 be-
lieves. No martyrs have sealed their faith with
their blood more steadfastly than the Anabap-
tists.

Last, but not least, the Protestant principle
contained within itself the germs of the destruc-
tion of the finality, which the Lutheran, Calvin-
istic, 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

I PROLOGUE 11

the canon defined the creed. If the private
judgment of Lnther miglit 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 wdio rejected the
authority of the Church, from extending its
operations to Daniel, the Canticles, and Ecclesi-
astes; 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 Eeason; 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 w^ere valid only so far
as they were countersigned by common sense, the
responsible minister.

The champions of Protestantism are much
given to glorify the Eeformation of the sixteenth
century as the emancipation of Eeason; 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

12 PROLOGUE I

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 Super-
naturalism. From Wicliff to Socinus, or even to
Miinzer, Eothmann, 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 tlie
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 judg-
ment 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 Pontilf-
papistry.

It was the iniquities, and not the irrationali-
ties, 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 Supernatural-
ism in which everybody, in principle, acquiesced.
What was the gain to intellectual freedom of
abolishing transubstantiation, image worship, in-
dulgences, ecclesiastical infallibility; if consub-
stantiation, real-unreal presence mystifications.

I PROLOGUE 13

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 Reforma-
tion one of the products of that great outbreak of
many-sided free mental activity included under
the general head of the Renascence? Melanch-
thon, XJlrich von Hutten, Beza, w^ere 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 Reforma-
tion and Protestantism are by no means con-
vertible terms. There were plenty of sincere and
indeed zealous reformers, before, during, and
after the birth and growth of Protestantism, who
AV'Ould 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 mcdia?val Supernaturalism. In the interests
of liberal eullure and of national welfare, the

14 PROLOGUE I

humanists were eager to lend a hand to anything
Avhicli tended to the discomfiture of their sworn
enemies, the monks, and tliey 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 appre-
hension 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 move-
ment 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 church-
man who refused to enlist with either the High
Church or the Low Church zealots, and paid tJie

I PROLOGUE 15

<

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 considera-
tion 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 Eenascence 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 influen-
tial men in each country among his friends, was
not likely to estimate wrongly the enormous
forces whicli were still at the command of the

Papacy. Bad as the churchmen might be, the
117

16 ^ PROLOGUE I

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, how-
ever learned and logical, of others; and to a cau-
tious thinker, by whoni, whatever his shortcom-
ings, 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 evangel-
istic clericalism in Geneva and in Scotland; the

I PKOLOGUE 17

long agony of religious wars, persecutions, and
massacres, wliicli 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 contem-
poraries 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, Avho held by his " Independent Chris-
tianity '' as stoutly as Voltaire by his Deism.

In fact, the stream of the Eenascence, 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

18 PROLOGUE I

tlie movement of the Eenascence was incarnate
became aware what spirit they were of; and they
attacked Supernaturalism in its Biblical strong-
hold, defended by Protestants and Eomanists
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 acute-
ness, 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 dii^ficult in-
vestigation. 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

I PROLOGUE 19

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 prepos-
terous theories of imposture, in order to account
for the religious phenomena which are natural
products of that evolution.

For the most part, the Eomanist and Protes-
tant 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 Aiialogy; while the pro-
gress 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 them-
selves, 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 pMlosophes, who objected
to Eousseau's sentimental religiosity almost as
much as they did to L'Infdme, 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

20 PROLOGUE I

Peasants' revolt, or Lutlier for the Bauern-'krieg.
In England, though our ancien regime was not
altogether lovely, the social edifice was never in
such a had way as in France; it was still capable
of being repaired; and our forefathers, very wisely,
preferred to wait until that operation could he
safely performed, rather than pull it all down
about their ears, in order to build a philosophically
planned house on brand-new speculative founda-
tions. Under these circumstances, it is not
wonderful that, in this country, practical men
preferred the gospel of Wesley and AYhitfield 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 indif-
ference, 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

I PROLOGUE 21

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 in-
formed and, in natural sequence, the most pre-
sumptuously 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 guid-

22 PROLOGUE I

ance 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 contem-
poraries, 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 ven-
tured 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 dis-
agreeable 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 docu-
ment,* signed by as many as thirty-eight out of
the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the Estab-
lished Church. It does not appear that the signa-
taries are officially accredited spokesmen of the
ecclesiastical corporation to which they belong;

* Declaration on the Truth of Holy Scripture. The
Times, 18th December, 1891.

T PROLOGUE 23

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 me-
morial 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 Protes-
tants, yet the green bay tree of bibliolatry flourishes
as it did sixty years ago. x\nd, as in those good old
times, whoso refuses to offer incense to the idol is
held to be guilty of " a dishonour to God," im-
perilling 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 un-
questioning belief," faith " in the supernatural
itself " is, so far, undermined. And I may con-
gratulate 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 pro-
claim 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.

24 PROLOGUE I

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 mani-
festation of opinion of a contrary character, on
the part of certain members of the same ecclesi-
astical 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 inspira-
tion " as there were timid questioners of that doc-
trine, half a century ago. Commentaries, sanc-
tioned 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

I PROLOGUE 25

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. Conser-
vative, 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 prevail-
ing 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 Protes-
tant Eef ormation and to call itself " Anglo-
Catholic." Inspiration, deprived of its old in-
telligible sense, is watered down into a mystifica- \
tion. The Scriptures are, indeed, inspired; but
they contain a wholly undefined and indefinable
'Miuman element"; and this unfortunate intrud- I
er is converted into a sort of biblical whipping
boy. AATiatsoever scientific investigation, histori-
cal or physical, proves to be erroneous, the
"human element" bears the blame; wliile the
divine inspiration of such statements, as by their
nature are out of reach of proof or disproof, is

2G PROLOGUE i

still asserted with all the vigour inspired by
conscious safety from attack. Though the pro-
posal 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 uncon-
sidered dignity of a " steward of science," may
well find this conflict of apparently equal ecclesi-
astical 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, criti-
cism] 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." *

* Declaration, Article 10.

I PROLOGUE 27

Grant that it is " the traditionary testimony of
the Churcli " which guarantees the canonicity of
each and all of the books of the Old and ISTew
Testaments. Grant also that canonicity means
infallibility; yet, according to the thirty-eight,
this " traditionary testimony " has to be '^ ascer-
tained 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 investiga-
tion, or be self-convicted of worthlessness. More-
over, before w^e 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 centu-
ries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is
to comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a
little beyond that of Nicsea, or to come to an
end in the time of Irena3us, or in that of
Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can l)e
decided, if at all, only by those critical methods
which the signataries treat so cavalierly. And
yet the decision of these questions is funda-
mental, for as the limits of the canonical scrip-
tures 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 Apo-
calypse are canonical and (by the hypothesis) in-
fallibly true; and another thing, if they are not.

28 PROLOGUE I

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 " anti-
quity," 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

I PROLOGUE 29

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 " an-
tiquity '^ permitted Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian,
Irena^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 Iremigus pro-
duces 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 actu-
ally 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 juris-
diction of which they affect to deny. Having
rested the world of Christian supcrnaturalism on
the elephant of biblical infallibility, and furnished
the elephant with standing ground on the tortoise

30 PROLOGUE I

of " antiquity/' they, like their famous Hindoo
analogue;, have been content to look no further;
and have thereby been spared the horror of dis-
covering that the tortoise rests on a grievously
fragile construction, to a great extent the work of
that very intellectual operation which they anathe-
matise and repudiate.

Moreover, there is another point to be consid-
ered. 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 in-
fallibility 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.*
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 IN'azareth; and that their divine authority is
presupposed by, and therefore can hardly depend
upon, the religious body constituted by his dis-
ciples. As everybody knows, the very conception
of a " Christ '' is purely Jewish. The validity

* E^o vero evan^elio non crederem, nisi ecclesi.T Oa-
th olicnp me commoveret auctoritas. Contra Epistolam
Manicluvi, cap. v.

I PROLOGUE 31

of the argument from the Messianic prophecies
vanishes unless their infallible authority is grant-
ed; 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 rec-
ognised 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,
wdiose infallibility is testified by the infallible
Bible, too absurd for serious consideration, it re-
mains permissible to ask, "Where and when the
Church, during the period of its infalliljility, as
limited by Anglican dogmatic necessities, has
officially decreed the " actual historical truth of
all records" in the Old Testament? Was Augus-
tine heretical when he denied the actual historical
truth of the record of the Creation? Father
Suarez, standing on later Eoman tradition, may
have a right to declare that he was; but it does

not lie in the mouth of those who limit their
118

32 PROLOGUE I

appeal to that early " antiquity/' in which Augus-
tine 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
JSTeo-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 e&tant 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
systematised 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 wliich
the Supernatural has hitherto been recognised.

When scientific historical criticism reduced the
annals of heroic Greece and of regal Eome to the
level of fables; when the unity of authorship of the
Iliad was successfully assailed by scientific literary

I PROLOGUE 33

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 i
tested; and that the evidence in favour of the j
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 Ee-
concilers venture upon is to affirm, that some
quite different sense may be put upon the words;
and that this non-natural sense may, with a little
trouble, be manipulated into some sort of non-
contradiction of scientic truth. ]\

My purpose, in the essay (XYI.) which treats
of the narrative of the Deluge, was to prove, by

\

34 PROLOGUE i

physical criticism, that no such event as that
described ever took place; to exhibit the untrust-
worthy 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^ea, 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 ani-
mals, 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

I PROLOGUE 35

come into existence as the last terms of a series,
the members of which have appeared one after
another. Tliiis^ far from confirming the account
in Genesis, tlie 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 Eloliim and
the daughters of men, which lie between the
creational and the diluvial legends? And, if
these are to lose all historical worth, what be-
comes of the infallibility of those who, according
to the later scriptures, have accepted them,
argued from them, and staked far-reaching dog-
matic conclusions upon their historical accuracy?

It is the merest ostrich policy for contempo-
rary ecclesiasticism to try to hide its TIexateuchal
head in the hope that the inseparable connec-
tion 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

1

36 PROLOGUE I

unhistorical, how is the historical accuracy of the
remainder to be guaranteed? What more intrin-
sic 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
Bpoke from Sinai?

In some other of the following essays (IX., X.,
XL, XII., XIV., XV.) I have endeavoured to
show that sober and well-founded physical and
literary criticism plays no less havoc with the doc-
trine 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 Supernatural-
ism 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 won-
derful occurrence; and I have endeavoured to show
that the evidence for the Gadarene miracle is

PROLOGUE

37

altogether worthless. We have simply three,
l)artially discrepant, versions of a story, al)out tlie
primitive form, the origin, and the autliority for
which we know ahsolutely nothing. But the evi-
dence 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 conclu-
sions 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 " in-
fidelity.'* 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 al)le to attain to any insight into
her ways, recks little about consolation and makes \
for righteousness by very round-about paths. I
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 pro-

'". < vo

a

38 PROLOGUE I

fessional and business needs, is increasing and will
continually increase. The phraseology of Super-
naturalism 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 Sun-
day, 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 ofhce; 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 prac-
tical affairs, we act on the aphorism " Lahorare
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.

I

It is important to note that the principle of the
scientific Naturalism of the latter half of the nine-
teenth century, in which the intellectual move-
ment of the Eenascence has culminated, and which

I PROLOGUE 39

was first clearly formulated by Descartes, leads not
to the denial of the existence of any Superna-
tnre; * 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 prac-
tically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omni-
presence, 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

* I employ the words " Siipernature " and " Supernatu-
ral "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 psvehical phenomena appears to
me to be as much part of " Nature " as the world of physi-
cal phenomena: and T am unable to perceive any justifica-
tion for cuttings the Universe into two halves, one natural
and one supernatural.

40 PROLOGUE I

' 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 oc-
cupy themselves wdth Jovian, or Martian, natural
history; and they will probably agree to a verdict
of " not proven " in respect of naturalistic theolo-
gy, 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

j are quite aware they do not know. As to the in-
terests 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 succeed-
ed, or seems likely ever to succeed, in effecting.

I PROLOGUE 41

I have hitherto dwelt upon scientific Natural-
ism cliielly in its critical and destructive aspect.
But the present incarnation of the spirit of the
Eenascence dilfcrs 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 phi-
losophy 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.

42 PROLOGUE I

For me, tlie doctrine of evolution is no specn-
latio7i, 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 differ-
entiation from an extremely low form; pala3ontol-
ogy 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 * arose successively, but inde-
pendently of one another, at intervals, during myr-
iads of years; or, the later forms are modified

* 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.

I PROLOGUE 43

descendants of the earlier. And the latter sup-
position 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 prog-
ress 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 con-
trary, 1 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 occupa-
tion 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

44 PROLOGUE i

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 fol-
lowing :

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 occur-
rence 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. "Wlien a series of specific
forms of the same type, extending over a long
period of past time, is examined, the relation be-
tween the earlier and the later forms is analogous
to that between earlier and later stages of indi-

I PROLOGUE 45

vidiial 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 wdiich 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 evo-
lution 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 wliich lay potentially in its primitive composi-
tion; 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

46 PROLOGUE I

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 analo-
gous 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 conscious-
ness, 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 con-
comitant, or a consequence, of the attainment by
the brain of the chick of a certain stage of

I PROLOGUE 47

structural evolution, consciousness makes its ap-
pearance. I have frequently expressed my in-
capacity to understand the nature of the relation
between consciousness and a certain anatomical
tissue, which is thus established bj'' observation.
But the fact remains that, so far as observation
and experiment go, they teach us that the psychi-
cal 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 pres-
ent 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, betAveen 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 witli 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 sensa-
tion and purposive action. Therefore, it would be

a justifiable hypothesis that, long after organic
119

48 PROLOGUE i

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 de-
merit, 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 suf-
fering 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 re-
spect, 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

I PllOLOGUE 49

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 close-
ness 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

1

PROLOGUE i3

onstantly bringing the social organisation to le
verge of destruction. Hence the prominence )f
the positive rules of obedience to the elders; )f
standing by the family or the tribe in all emerga-
cies; of fulfilling the religious rites, non-obse.^-
ance of which is conceived to damage it with te
supernatural powers, belief in whose existenceis
one of the earliest products of human thougL;
and of the negative rules which restrain edi
from meddling with the life or property )f
another.

12. The highest conceivable form of hunn
societv is that in which the desire to do whatis
best for the whole dominates and limits le
action of every member of that society, le
more complex the social organisation the grea^r
the number of acts from which each man m?t
abstain if he desires to do that which is best )r
all. Thus the progressive evolution of sociy
means increasing restriction of individual freedn
in certain directions.

With the advance of civilisation, and le
growth of cities and of nations by the coalesce^e
of families and of tribes, the rules which ca-
stitute the common foundation of morality ancof
law became more numerous and complicated, ad
the temptations to break or evade many of thn
stronger. In the absence of a clear apprehi-
sion of the natural sanctions of these rules a
supernatural sanction was assumed; and imagia-

52 PROLOGUE I

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 phenom-
ena 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

I PROLOGUE 53

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 emergen-
cies; of fulfilling the religious rites^ non-observ-
ance 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 con-
stitute 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 apprehen-
sion of the natural sanctions of these rules, a
supernatural sanction was assumed; and imagina-

54 PROLOGUE i

tion supplied the motives which reason was sup-
[ posed to be incompetent to furnish. Religion, at
first independent of morality, gradually took
: morality under its protection; and the super-
naturalists have ever since tried to persuade
mankind that the existence of ethics is bound up
with that of super naturalism.

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 pe-
culiarity of the devil that he was a liar from
the beginning. If we set out in life with pre-
tending to know that which we do not know; with
professing to accept for proof evidence which we
are well aware is inadequate; with wilfully shut-
ting 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 supernatural-
istic system can also claim exactness. That they
are irreconcilable with the ])iblical cosmogonv,

I PROLOGUE 55

anthropology, and theodicy is obvious; but they
are no less inconsistent with the sentimental
Deism of the " Yicaire 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 under-
stand by a purely benevolent intention, as it is
to imagine that the intention was purely malevo-
lent. 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 dif-
ficulty 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 leg-
ends 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 hav*^ 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

66 PROLOGUE 1

a subject for scoffing and an occasion for the
dis^^lay 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

i good and hate evil, even as they also are earning

their payment for their work? " *
i

* " The School Bonrrls: What they Can do and what
they May do," 1870. Critiques and Addresses, p. 51.

I PROLOGUE 57

At the same time, I laid stress upon the neces-
sity 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 peren-
nially 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 Cliarta 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.

58 PROLOGUE i

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 cen-
turies; 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 propor-
tion 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 Scrip-
tures has had no necessary connection with
cosmogonies, demonologies, and miraculous inter-
ferences. 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 be-
lieve that the human race is not yet, possibly may
never be, in a position to dispense with it.

II

SCIENTIFIC AND PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC

EEALISM

[1887]

Next to undue precipitation in anticipating
the results of pending investigations, the intellec-
tual sin which is commonest and most hurtful to
those who devote themselves to the increase of
knowledge is the omission to profit by the experi-
ence 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 acqui-
sitions 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 re])aid by the joys of the discoverer and

59

60 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

the solace of fame, if not by rewards of a less
elevated character.

So, following the advice of Francis Bacon, we
refuse inter moiiuos qucerere vivumj Ave 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 Eenaissance, 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 indisput-
able, that, for seven or eight centuries, a long
succession of able men some of them of trans-
cendent acuteness and encyclopgedic 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 tliat epoch, who, take them all round,
were endowed with wisdom and folly in much
the same proportion as ourselves, were likely to

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 61

display nothing better than the qualities of ener-
getic 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 sup-
posed. 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 promis-
ing 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 else-
where.

If we turn our attention to scholastic philoso-
phy in the frame of mind suggested by these prefa-
tory 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

62 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 indisput-
able 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 Avorlds to be considered, the one
physical and the other psychical; and that though
there is a most intimate relation and interconnec-
tion between the two, the bridge from one to the
otlier 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 difPerent aspect. How this
came about will not be intelligible unless we
clearly apprehend the fact that they did really

n PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 63

believe in dogmatic Christianity as it was formu-
lated by the Eoman 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 theo-
logical world which was created, or rather grew
up, during the first four centuries of our reckon-
ing, and which occupied their thoughts far more
than the sensible world in which their earthly lot
w^as 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 specula-
tive problems, to understand that about which
they write. In historical science, as in all
sciences which have to do with concrete phenom-
ena, 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 theologi-
cal systems. Thucydides and Tacitus, and, to come
nearer our own time, ITume 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
120

64 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 moon-
shine 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 ex-
ample, as Eginhard or Dante is necessary to con-
vince 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 sen-
sible 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.*

* 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 protago-
nist of t he Reformation, from whom the whole of the Evan-
gelical sects are lineally decended, 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

n PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 65

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 trust-
worthy^ 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

posita est, ceu jiimentum ; si insederit Deus, vult et vadit,
quo vult Deus. ... Si insederit Satan, vult et vadit, quo
vult Satan ; nee est in ejus arbitrio ad utrnm sessorem
currere, aut euni qua^rere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum
obtinenduni et possidenduni " {De Servo Arhltrio, M.
Lutheri Opera, ed. 154G, t. ii. p. 468). One may hear sub-
stantially 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.

66 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM n

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 svstem of
thought which started from the data of pure
reason, with that which started from the data of
Eoman 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 * Christianity of Catholicism the long and
bitter contest, which engaged the best intellects

*I say " so-called " not by way of ofTence, but as a pro-
test against the nionstrovis assumption that Catholic Chris-
tianity is explicitly or implicitly contained in any trust-
worthy record of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 67

for so many centuries, may seem a terrible illustra-
tion 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 scholas-
ticism. 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 syllo-
gisms 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 ecclesi-
asticism, 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 tliey began to think, and
which, I suppose, will present themselves so long
as they continue to think. Consider, for example,
the controversy of the Eealists and the Nominal-
ists, which was carried on with varying fortunes,
and under various names, from the time of Scotus
Erigcna to the end of the scholastic period. Has
it now a merely antiquarian interest? Has
iSTominalism, in any of its modifications^ so com-

68 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

pletely won the day that Eealism 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 Eealism is still to the fore, and
indeed extremely lively.*

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 prec-
edents, the accuracy of the report in detail is
not to the purpose. I may safely take it as the
embodiment of views which are thouc-ht to be

* 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 sub-
jective existence, the Realist that it has an objective ex-
istence. I am not aware that any mediseval philosopher
was an Idealist in the sense in which we apply the term to
Berkeley. In fact, the cardinal defect of their specula-
tions 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.

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 69

quite in accordance with science by many excel-
lent^ 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 suspen-
sion of a lower law by the intervention of a higher'? Thus
every time we lifted our arms we defied the laws of gravi-
tation, 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 sur-
round 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 East-
ern Archipelago, Greece, and Chicago bore witness. . . .
In presence of a great earthquake men feel how power-
less they are, and their very knowledge adds to their
weakness. The end of human probation, the final dissolu-
tion of organised society, and the destruction of man's
home on the surface of the globe, were none of them vio-
lently contrary to our present experience, but only the ex-
tension of present facts. The presentiment of death was
common; there were felt* to be many things whicli threat-
ened the existence of society ; and as our globe was a ball
of fire, at any moment the pent-up forces which surge and

70 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 '' * 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 author-
ity to the imaginative supposition that physical
law will prevent the occurrence of the " catas-
trophes '^ 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

* 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 I

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 71

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 inhab-
itants. 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 " Tlieory 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 catastro-
phes of prodigious magnitude and frequent occur-
rence, they were the favourite asylum ignorantice
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

72 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM n

tlie 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 htis
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 slow-
ness. 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 depres-
sion, 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 scientif-
ic 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 re-arrangement
of the parts of the crust of the earth on a scale of
unprecedented magnitude, and bring about "catas-
trophes " to which the earthquake of Lisbon is
but a trifle. It is conceivable that man and his

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 73

works and all the higher forms of animal life
should be utterly destroj^ed; that mountain
regions should be 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 be 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 be 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 A-alue does
not fulfil the conditions on which weisrht is at-
tached to evidence. The imagination which sup-
poses 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 unimagi-
nable. If a being endowed with perfect intellectual
and aesthetic faculties, but devoid of the capacity
for suffering pain, either physical or moral, were

74 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM n

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 arrange-
ment, under the conditions which we call the laws
of nature. Such a spectator might well be filled
wdth that Amor intelledualis 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 suffer-
ing, as if sensitive beings were unregarded animal-
cules 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

n PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM Y5

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 expres-
sions, 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 belong-
ings. 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 unmiti-
gated 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

76 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

thing, apart from individual men, having its exist-
ence, 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 con-
ceives the idea of colour. They hold it to be some-
thing which resides in the coloured object; and so
far they are as much Eealists as if they had sat at
Plato's feet. Eeflection on the facts of the case
must, I imagine, convince every one that " col-
our " 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 slight-
est 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 scien-
tific sense, is the product of a mental operation
iipon 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

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 77

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 absurd-
ity 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 direc-
tion, 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

78 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 real-
ism in any form, " law " is often inadvertently em-
ployed 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 expec-
tation that they will so fall. If it should be worth
anybody's while to seek for examples of such mis-
use 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 ex-
pression. If I am guilty, I do penance before-
hand, 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

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ^79

he might find good precedents. But it is one of
those errors ^yhich^ in the ease of a person engaged
in scientific pursuits, do little harm, because it is
corrected as soon as its consequences become obvi-
ous; 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 be-
lievers 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 dev-
otees 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 en-
deavour to upset the dictum thus foisted on science
by a realistic argument which is equally unsci-
entific.

121

80 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 state-
ments, is due to the fact that they feel themselves
justified in denying the possibility of any such
metamorphosis of water, or of any such levi-
tation, 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 chemi-
cal 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 inter-
fere with another. To us, that assumption is as
nonsensical as if you were to talk of a proposi-
tion 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 knowl-
edge 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

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 81

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 thinlc that the bodies, whicli we
have hitherto called elementary, are really com-
posite arrangements of the particles of a uniform
primitive matter. Supposing that view to be cor-
rect, 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.

82 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 " car-
bon," it is obvious that alcohol and other sub-
stances, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxy-
gen, 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 sci-
ence, as yet, knows nothing of, by w^hich 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

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 83

swifter than train or telegram to " still-vexed
Bermoothcs," and twit Ariel, if he happens to be
there, for a sluggard? We have not the presump-
tion 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 exemplifica-
tions 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 constitu-
ents 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 condi-
tioning 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 circumistance 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 gen-
eral physics, as they now stand. Everybody who

84 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM n

observes the obvious phenomena of the develop-
ment 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 for-
malis 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 succes-
sion 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 contradis-
tinction 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 philoso-
pher (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 atmos-
phere enveloping the particles of bodies, and hav-
ing potential or actual activity, is simply a new
name for the Aristotelian Form.* In modern bi-

* " Les formes des anciens on Entelechies ne sont autre
chose que les forces " (Leibnitz, Lettre au Fere Bouvet, 1697),

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 85

ology, up till within quite recent times, the Aris-
totelian conception held undisputed sway; living
matter was endowed with '^ vital force/' and that
accounted for everything. Whosoever was not sat-
isfied with that explanation was treated to that
very ^^ plain argument " " confound you eternal-
ly " wherewith Lord Peter overcomes the doubts
of his brothers in the " Tale of a Tub " " Material-
ist " was the mildest term applied to him fortu-
nate if he escaped pelting with " infidel " and
" atheist." There may be scientific Rip Van Win-
kles 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 scho-
lastic realism arrested or, at any rate, impeded
the application of sound scientific principles to
the investigation of biological phenomena. "Wlien
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

86 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

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 conld 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.

Eealism 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-Juda^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 posi-
tive knowledge, put forward a theory of the pro-
duction 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

n PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM 87

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 his-
tory at which they existed. But, under the influ-
ence of the embryological and pal?eontological dis-
coveries of modern times, which had already lent
some scientific support to the revived ancient the-
ories of cosmical evolution or emanation, the in-
genious author of this speculation, while denying
and repudiating the ordinary theory of evolution
by successive modification of individuals, main-
tained 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

88 PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC REALISM ii

" wreck " thus brought about, did the embodiment
of a divine thought, in the shape of the first man,
make its appearance as the ?ie plus ultra of the
cosmogonical process.

I imagine that Louis Agassiz, the genial back-
woodsman 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 doc-
trine of the Cabbala, pure and simple. According
to this modification of Neoplatonism by contact
with Hebrew speculation, the divine essence is un-
knowable without form or attribute; but the in-
terval 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 far-
ther 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 ap-

II PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC E-EALISM 89

pearance. It is needless to trace the process of re-
trogressive metamorphosis by which, through the
agency of the Messiah, the steps of the process of
evohition here sketched are retraced. Sufficient
has been said to prove that the extremist realism
current in the philosophy of the thirteenth cen-
tury can be fully matched by the speculations of
our own time.

Ill

SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE

[1887]

In the opening sentences of a contribution to
the last number of this Eeview,* the Duke of
Arg}'!! has favoured me with a lecture on the pro-
prieties of controversy, to which I should be dis-
posed 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 promi-
nence an element of personality, which those who
read the paper which is the object of the Duke's
animadversions will observe I have endeavoured,
mosf carefully, to avoid. My criticisms dealt with
a report of a sermon, published in a newspaper,
and thereby addressed to all the world. AYhether
that sermon was preached by A or B was not a

* Nineteenth Century, March, 1887.
90

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 91

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 re-
sponsibility for statements which, for anything I
knew to the contrary, might contain imperfect, or
inaccurate, representations of his views. The asser-
tion 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 unen-
dowed 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 promulga-
tion of literary, or historical, or scientific errors.

92 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

it is not only the right, but the duty, of the hum-
blest layman, who may happen to be better in-
formed, to correct the evil effects of such perver-
sion 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 Estab-
lished Church is a branch of the Civil Service;
and, for those who repudiate the ecclesiastical
authority of the clergy, they are merely civil serv-
ants, 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^' news-
papers. 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 tliis exer-
cise 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 93

Argyll claims for tliem. 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 compe-
tent and critical experts.

I decline to assume that the standard of moral-
ity, 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 congre-
gation, 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
tliink 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?

N'o 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 tlian the practice, too common among lay-
men, of regarding them, when in the pulpit, as

94 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

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 pro-
tection 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 sur-
prise.

I am unfeignedly astonished to find that the
Duke of Argyll, who professes to intervene on
behalf of the preacher, does reall}^, 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 95

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.*

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 ap-
pears that he fully accepts my position that the
occurrence of those events, which the preacher
speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence of dis-
order, 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 " wreck-

* The Duke of Argyll speaks of the recent date of the
demonstration of tlie fallacy of tlic 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 wliich 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 tcacliw
who ignores views which have been discussed coram jjopulo
for twenty years, is hardly up to the mark.

122

96 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

ing " 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 1 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 com-
monly called unif ormitarianism) " does not hold

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 97

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 LyelFs 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 be advantageously dis-
cussed, unless we take some pains to discriminate
betw^een 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 per-
fect continuity of all geological changes."

AVhat " 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 geo-
logical 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 occur-
rence 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.

98 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE in

in what sense has this part of the nniformitarian
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 LyelFs great work can have so com23letely
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 LyelFs
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 there-
fore create a presumption in favour of the slowness
of past changes.

With that epigrammatic force which character-
ises his style, Buffon wrote, nearly a hundred and
fifty years ago, in his famous " Thcorie 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 he sought in the present; and, only when
known causes of chancre have been shown to be
insuificient, have we any right to have recourse to

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 99

unknown causes. Geology is as much a historical
science as arclueology; and I apprehend that all
sound historical investigation rests upon this
axiom. It underlay all Hutton's work and ani-
mated 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 del-
uge 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

100 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE m

each to be in action for thousands of years, without produc-
ing any extensive alterations in the habitable surface, and
then to give rise, during a very brief period, to important
revolutions (vol. ii. p. 161).*

Lyell quarrelled with the catastrophists then,
by no means because they assumed that catas-
trophes 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
LyelFs 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 in-
tensely or more rapidly, at any time between the
older tertiary and the oldest palieozoic epochs
than they have done between the older tertiary
epoch and the present day. And if that is so, uni-
formitarianism, even as limited by Lyell, f has no

* See also vol. i. p. 460. In the ninth edition (1853), pub-
lished twenty-three years after the first, Lyell deprives even
the most careless reader of any excuse for misunderstand-
ing 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 admis-
sion of their alternate development and suspension for in-
definite periods within limited geographical areas " (p. 187).

f A great many years ago (Presidential Address to tlie
Geological Society, 1869) I ventured to indicate that which
seemed to me to be the weak point, not in the fundamental

in SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 101

call to lower its crest. But if the facts were other-
wise, the position Lyell took up remains impreg-
nable. He did not say that the geological opera-
tions of nature were never more rapid, or more vast,
than tliey are now; what he did maintain is the
very different proposition that there is no good evi-
dence of anything of the kind. And that proposi-
tion 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 sud-
den changes," which, as I have shown, is taught
totidem verbis in that work. Even had it been pos-
sible for me to shut my eyes to the sense of what I
had read in the " Principles," Wheweirs " Phi-
losophy of the Inductive Sciences," published in
18 10, a work with which I was also tolerably famil-
iar, must have opened them. For the always acute,

principles of iiniformitarianism, but in nniformitarianism
as taught by Lyell. It lay. to my mind, in the refusal by
Hutton, and in a less deerree 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 nniformitarianism the place
as the permanent form of geological speculation which it
might otherwise have held " {Lay Sermons, p. 260). The
context shows that "nniformitarianism" here means that
doctrine, as limited in application by Hutton and Lyell,
and tliat wdiat T mean by " evolutionism " is consistent and
thoroughgoing uniformitarianism.

102 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

if not always profound, author, in arguing against
LyelFs uniformitarianism, expressly points out that
it does not in any way contravene the occurrence
of catastrophes.

With regard to such occurrences [earthquakes, dekiges,
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.*

The reader who has followed me through this
brief chapter of the history of geological philoso-
phy 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 Presi-
dent of the British Association,! 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 con-
currence.

I should think he did; for, as I have shown,
there was nothing in it that Lyell himself had not
said, six-and-t^\Tnty years before, and enforced,
three years before; and it is almost verbally

* Philosophy of the Inductive Scipnces, vol. i. p. G70.
New edition, 1847. + At Glasgow in 1856.

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 103

identical with the view of uniformitarianism taken
by Whewell, sixteen years before, in a work with
wliich, one would think, that any one who under-
takes 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 AxgyH's acquaintance with the
literature of geology has not, even now, become
suihciently profound to dissipate that pleasant de-
lusion.

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 un-
safe, I may breathe more freely in setting my opin-
ion 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 em-
barrassing. I must bear in mind the good old
adage, ^' Xon 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 unintclligibility which hangs about

104 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

his frequent outpourings of fervid language, limits
of space oblige me to restrict myself to those
points, the discussion of which may help to en-
lighten 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^j 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 equiva-
lent of " Form,'^ and I am inclined to think that
he may be responsible for a good deal of the con-
fusion that has subsequently arisen; but I am not
aware that the term is used by other authori-
ties, 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 " regies,
que je nomme les lois de la nature.'^ Leibnitz
says " loi ou regie generale," as if he considered
the terms interchangeable.

The Duke of Argyll, however, affirms that tlie
'* 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 105

belongs to a higher category of intellectual con-
ceptions 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 in-
disjmtable. 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, " matliematice " and
not " physice."

How these attractions [of gravity, magnetism, and elec-
tricity] 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 sig-
nify only in a general way any force by which bodies tend
towards one another, whatever be the cause.*

According to my reading of the best authorities
upon the history of science, Newton discovered

* Optics, query 31.

106 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE in

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, w^as that labour of unsurpassed mag-
nitude and excellence and of immortal influence
which ISTewton 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 mathe-
matical consequences of these rules, he almost cre-
ated 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 dis-
tances; assuming that the laws of motion, deter-
mined for terrestrial bodies, hold good through-
out the universe; assuming that the planets and

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 107

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?

ISTewton, 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 astronomi-
cal 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

108 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

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 interest-
ing if the Duke of Argyll w^ould 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 oxy-
gen are caused by chemical attraction and deduci-
ble 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 184-i.

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,

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 109

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 Pla-

tonisers or the Logos of the Alexandrians.* I

maj?" 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 im-
mediate 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 expres-
sion 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 un-

* The author recognises this in his Explanations.

J 10 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

derstand that (as in Leibnitz's caricature of New-
ton'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 doc-
trine, 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 dis-
course 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
Eeign of Law," which, I believe, has enjoyed,

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE m

possibly still enjoys, a widespread popularity.
But the vivacity of the Duke's attack led me to
think it possible that criticisms directed else-
where 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 state-
ment 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. Qi(^). Thus
" laws," which were rightly said to be the state-
ment of an order of facts in one paragraph, are
declared to be the facts themselves in the next.

AVe 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 Avriter, 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 indi-
123

112 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

cate necessity, and necessity can only arise out of the action
of some compelling force (p. 68).

This is undoubtedly one of the most singular
pro|)ositions that I have ever met with in a
professedly scientific work, and its rarity is
embellished by another direct self-contradiction
which it imj^lies. For on the preceding page
(67), when tlie 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
everv science are laws of this kind and in this

sense."

If, according to the Duke of Argyll's admis-
sion, 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 dis-

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 113

cussion. But I would beg to be informed, if it is
necessary, where is the " compelUng 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 unex-
ceptionable 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. More-
over, 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 tliat " 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. TUit 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

114: SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

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
w^hat 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 " gravita-
tion," 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 115

reckoning a great number of other considerations;
and, finally, that all we know aljout the '" force "
of gravitation, or any other so-called "' f orce,'^ 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 opera-
tion 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 2)ossesses an adequate acquaintance with
either the facts, or the philosophy, of science, and
be relegated to the limbo of pseudo-scientific falla-
cies. 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 cor-
responding 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 enjo3^ed, 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

116 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

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 country-
man 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 en-
deavour 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 con-
troversy 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 cer-
tainly 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE HY

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 wdiatever
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 scien-
tific training, of accurate scientific knowledge, or of
clear ideas respecting the philosophy of science,
which is doing very serious harm to the public.
ISTaturally 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 sor-
row that it should be his duty to subject me to
reproof

118 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE in

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 com-
mon abstraction, the movements due to gravitation and the
movements due to the mind of man f

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 wdiether it has any definite
meaning. But I imagine that the Duke is alluding
to my assertion that the law of gravitation is no-
wise " 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE II9

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 sim-
plicity is greater than my powers of imagination.

The Duke of Argyll may not he aware of the
fact, but it is nevertheless true, that when a man's
arm is raised, in sequence to that state of con-
sciousness 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 " contrac-
tion " in sundry masses of flesh, technically known
as muscles, wdiich are fixed to the bones of the
shoulder in such a manner that, if these muscles
contract, they must raise the arm. jSTow 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 propor-
tion of the energy set free by the molecular changes

120 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

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 w^hich the Duke of
Argyll thinks so extremely absurd is really one of
the commonplaces of physiology. But this Eeview
is hardly an appropriate place for giving instruc-
tion 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 be-
gins thus:

Broadly speaking, the animal body is a machine for con-
verting 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 conscious-
ness, 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. Tlie ultimate form of the

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 121

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 small-
est 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 contro-
versies 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

122 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

be attracted, almost exclusively, to the bare
jDlaces of fallacy and the stony grounds of deficient
information, which are disguised, though not con-
cealed, by these floral decorations. But, in his con-
cluding sentences, the Duke soars into a Tyrtasan
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 Eobespierre; 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 123

poor oppressed friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer, ^ com-
pelled to speak with bated breath' (p. 338) cer-
tainly 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 Home
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 Eevolt."
In fact, the scientific world laughs most inde-
corously 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 trans-
atlantic 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.
])ut if so, I most respectfully but firmly decline

124 SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE iii

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. Dar-
win'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 some-
times 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 suihciently 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

Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 125

that conviction, and have availed myself of the
" rara temponim felicitas ubi sentire qnas velis, et
qii8B sentias dicere licet/' which is now enjoyable,
to the best of my ability; and though strongly,
and perhaps wisely, warned that I should prob-
ably 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 wliich miglit 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 prob-
ability.

IV

AN EPISCOPAL TEILOGY

[1887]

If there is any trutli 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 distin-
guished 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 * containing a version, which I presume

* The Advance of Science. Three sermons preached in
Manchester Cathedral on Sunday, September 4, 1887, during
126

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 127

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 repre-
sentatives of the Church is a question to be con-
sidered 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 displa}^ and by the spirit

the rneeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, by the Bishop of Carlisle, the Bishop of BedforcJ,
and the Bishop of Manchester.

124

128 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 re-
sort to the iu qiioqiie 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 cen-
tury 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

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 129

perfectly frank statement of the doctrine of evo-
lution 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 7nay 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 be held,
than that his mind is perfectly open to the force of
evidence.

There is another portion of the Bishop of Bed-
ford's sermon which I think will be warmly appre-
ciated 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 inter-
meddle with each other. They revolve, as it were, in differ-
ent planes, and so never meet. Thus we may pursue scien-
tific 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. 20).

Surely every unsophisticated mind will heartily

concur with the Bishop's remark upon this con-

130 ^N EPISCOPAL TRILOGY . iv

venient refuge for the descendants of Mr. Facing-
botli-ways. '^ I have never been able to under-
stand 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 ad-
mits the force of the objections which have been
raised, on scientific grounds, to prayer, and at-
tempts to turn them by arguing that the proper
objects of prayer are not physical but spiritual. He
tells us that natural accidents and moral misfor-
tunes 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 recog-
nise the process of evolution there, as in the physi-
cal 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 na-
ture of God and man, of human life and Divine Providence,
which we now find to be untenable f 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 de-

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 131

velopraent ? 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 harve endeavom-ecl
to illustrate the evolution of theology in a paper
published in the Nineteenth Centui^y last year,* 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 rec-
ognise the authority oi secular science in the man-
ner 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 per-
petual 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

* Reprinted in Vol. IV. of this collection.

132 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 re-
proach 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 validitv "
(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 Eeview and elsewhere, of the mischief
which has been done, and is being done, by a mis-
taken apprehension of the real meaning of " natu-
ral 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

TV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 133

past, and to expectations for the future based upon
that experience? Nobody can presume to say
wliat 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 propor-
tional strength of evidence in favour of any asser-
tion 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 " mira-
cles " or to the efficacy of prayer, in so far as the
latter implies the miraculous intervention of a
higher power. N"o one is entitled to say a priori
that any given so-called miraculous event is im-
possible; 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

134 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY it

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 un-
restrained 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 kind-
ness which lay within his power, he would do it.
And I am unable to see that his action on my

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 135

request involves any violation of the order of
nature. On the contrary, as I have not the
honour to knoAv 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 con-
siderations 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 sup-
positions, 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 approxi-
mates to the fulfilment of this requirement.

But, in the case of prayer, the Bishop points

136 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 pos-
session 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, v^'hether 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 bor-
row Newton's well-known phrase, the concentra-
tion 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

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 137

" intending of the mind " npon religions and
moral ideals may have npon character and
happiness. Scientific faith, at present, takes it
no furtlier than the prayer which Ajax offered;
bnt 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 in-
disputable 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 im-
pression abroad I do not desire to give any
countenance to it that I am fond of reading
sermons. From time to time, unknown corre-
spondents 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.

138 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

I found one of the latter category among the
accumulated arrears to which 1 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 evi-
dence 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 differ-
ent 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 re-
markable 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 per-
ceives the bearing of his arguments against the

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 139

altcrability 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
w^arns 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 hap-
pened, Christianity, in any sense which is not a mockery,
"which does not make the terra 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 dis-
tinctly against this new contrivance. Christianity is essen-
tially miraculous, and falls to the ground if miracles be im-
possible.

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

140 AN EPISCOPAL TKILOGY iv

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 pos-
sesses the monopoly of serious and constant reflec-
tion 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 appre-
hension 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.

IV AN EPISCOPAL TEILOGY 141

greed, and vainglory beset ns as tliey do otlier
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 ex-
pressions 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 au-
thorship, 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

142 ' AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 Eoman 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 Creli 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.

IV AN EPISCOPAL TEILOGY 143

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 de-
veloped 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 con-
tented with misrepresenting science on its specu-
lative side, " Anonymous " attacks its morality.

For two whole years, investicfations 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 upset-
ting the faith and disturbing the judgment formed hij the
125

144 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 Sep-
tember number of this Review. Truly it is " a
great lesson," but not quite in the sense intended
by the giver thereof.

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 145

In the course of his doubtless well-meant ad-
monitions, the Duke of Argyll commits himself
to a greater number of statements which are de-
monstrably incorrect and which any one who ven-
tured 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 vears 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

146 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

attention is directed to Mr. Murray's views Pro-
fessor 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. Eein, 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 moun-
tain-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.*

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 prob-
lems involved in their study. I happen to have
* American Journal of Science, 1885, p. 190.

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 147

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 re-
newed study of the subject in all its bearings, I
must be content to remain in a condition of sus-
pended 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 acqui-
escence " in a conclusion which they have the
gravest warranty for suspecting.
Second:
Darwin himself had lived to hear of the new sokition
and, with that splendid candour which was eminent in hira
his mind, though now grown old in his own early convictions,
was at least ready to entertain it, and to confess that seri-
ous 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

148 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

" 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,
j)ublished 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, ex-
presses his continued adherence to the opinion
" that the atolls and barrier reefs in the middle
of the Pacific and Indian Oceans indicate sub-
sidence "; 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 pro-
found as the abysses of the Pacific (p. 301).

Eeally? It seems to me that, under the circum-
stances, 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).

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 149

But surely it should be added that the CoryphaBus
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 DarAvin'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 unpleas-
ant consequences.

Sixth:

Mr. Murray's views, published in 1880, are
said to have met with " slow and sulkv ac-
quiescence " (p. 305). I have proved that they
cannot be said to have met with general acqui-
escence of any sort, whether quick and cheerful, or
slow and sulky; and if this assertion is meant

150 AN EPISCOPAL TPJLOGY iv

to convey the impression that Mr. Murray's views
have been ignored, that there has been a conspiracy
of silence against theni_, 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,*
notably in a long article on " The Origin of Coral-
Eeefs/' published in two numbers of " ^N'ature " for
1883, and in a Presidential Address delivered in
the same year. If, in so short a time after the pub-
lication 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 preva-
lent 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-ac-

* Professor Geikie, however, thoucfh a strong, is a fair
and candid advocate. He says of Darwin's theovy, " 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.

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 151

cepted theory of the coral islands, and was actually induced
to delay it for two years. Yet the late Sir Wyville Thom-
son, who was at the head of the naturalists of the " Challen-
ger" expedition, was himself convinced by Mr. Murray's
reasoning (p. f307).

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 com-
petent person, and fortified by the independent
results of the many years' labour of another un-
doubtedly competent person; and even, if neces-
sary, 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. ^lurray was advised
to delay the publication of his criticisms, simply to

152 ^N EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 Achito-
phel has not yet made good the primary fact of
his existence. Until the needful proof is forthcom-
ing, I think I am justified in suspending my judg-
ment 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 evi-
dence 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
wdio 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 ofl; 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

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 153

suggested by a mere fanatical desire to damage
men of science. I can but rejoice, tlien, tliat
tliese misguided enthusiasts, wliose faitli in me
has so far exceeded the bounds of reason, sliould
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
Bathyhius, 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 responsi-
bility for the first description and the naming of
BathyUus 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 Micro-
scopical 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-sub-

154 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

sequent meeting of the Association, being impor-
tuned 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 as-
sertion that Bathyhius was accepted because of its
supposed harmony with Darwin^s speculations.
That which interested me in the matter was the
apparent analogy of Bathyhius with other well-
known forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia
of the Myxomycetes and the Ehizopods. Specu-
lative hopes or fears had nothing to do with the
matter; and if Bathyhius 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 knoAvn.

Up to this moment I was not aware of the
universal favour with which Bathyhius was re-
ceived.* Those simulators of an " ignorant mob "
who, according to the Duke of Argyll, welcomed

*I find, moreover, that T specially warned my readers
as^ainst hasty jndsfment. After stating: the facts of obser-
A^ation, I add, "I have, hitherto, said nothine: about their
meaninc:, '"^s, in an inquiry so diflficult and fraue:ht with in-
terest as this, it seems to me to be in the hitrhest decree im-
portant to keep the questions of fact and the questions of
interpretation well apart " (p. 210).

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY 155

Darwin's theory of coral-reefs, made no demon-
stration in my favour, unless liis 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 he 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 " Na-
ture," 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

156 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

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 wdio 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 re-
pugnance. And if, as would seem from this and
former monitory allocutions wdiich 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

IV AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY I57

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 acquies-
cence 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

158 AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY iv

witli 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 w^hile, 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 under-
stood 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, ac-
quainted 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, occu-
pied an exceptionally favourable position for mak-
ing his views widely known; and he had, more-
over, the singular good fortune to secure from the
first the advocacy of so able and brilliant a writer

VI AN EPISCOPAL TRILOGY I59

as Professor Archibald Geikie, who in a special dis-
course 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 consid-
erable 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 " Out-
lines of Geology," published in 1886. Similar
prominence is given to the subject in De Lap-
parent's '' Traite de Geologic," published in 1885,
and in Credner's " Elemente der Geologic," 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, Joiix W. Judd.

October 10, 1887.

120

i.y'y

V

THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE'
MIRACULOUS

[1889]

Charles, or, more properly, Karl, King of the
Franks, consecrated Eoman Emperor in St.
Peter's on Christmas Day, a. d. 800, and known
to posterity as the Great (chiefly by his agglutina-
tive Gallicised denomination of Charlemagne),
was a man great in all ways, physically and
mentally. Within a conple of centuries after his
death Charlemagne became the centre of innu-
merable 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 j^ireceded 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 youtli at the court, being educated
along with Charles's sons. There is excellent
contemporary testimony not only to Eginhard's
100

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 161

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 subse-
quently 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 attribut-
ed 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.* It was
written in the ninth century, somewhere, appar-
ently, about the year 830, when Eginhard, ailing
in health and weary of political life, had with-
drawn 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

* IMy citations are made from Teiilet's Einhardi omnia
quce extant o])era, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a l)iog-
raj)hy of the author, a history of the text, with translations
into French, and many valuable annotations.

162 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS t

this copy, the original has been in any way inter-
polated 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 en-
joy 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 Ger-
many which lies between the Neckar and the Maine,* 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 serv-
ice 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 re-
turn 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, f and of the

* At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt
and Baden.

f This took place in the year 820 a. d. The relics were
brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St. Me-
dardus at Soissons.

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 163

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 an-
swer 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,
Eatleicns (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,* 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

* Now included in Western Switzerland.

lOi WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

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
qnickly to the city of Argentoratnm, which is now called
Strasburg. Thence embarking on the Rhine, they came to
the place called Portus,* and landing on the east bank of
the river, at the fifth station thence they arrived at Michi-
linstadt,f 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 Eginliard'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 Eatleig, the notary, who, being set to
watch the holy relics in the church after vespers,
went to sleep and, during his slumbers, had a vis-
ion 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.

* Probably, according to Teulet, the present Sandhofer-
fahrt. a little below the embouchure of the Neckar.

f The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N. E. of Heidel-
berg.

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 165

IJnfortunateh', the saints SGcm to have for-
gotten 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 moclum Jiumore
sanguineo undique distiUantem), and at once sent
a message to Eginhard.

Then 1 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 mar-
ble 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

166 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

to say that the liquid " had a saline taste, some-
thing 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 re-
moval of the relics w^ere given; and, from that time
forth, " not a single night passed without one, two,
or even three of our companions receiving revela-
tions 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 Seligen-
stadt) 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.

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 167

At the end of the first day's journey, the pre-
cious relics were deposited in the church of St.
Martin, in the village of Ostheim. Hither, a para-
lytic nun {sanctimonialis qucedam 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 sup-
porting 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 durins: 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

168 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

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. 83.)

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 re-
ceived from trustworthy sources?

Wonderful stories these are indeed, but as they
are, for the most part, of the same general charac-
ter 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 sj^eeches 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 re-
plied yes or no.

The possessed girl, about sixteen years of age,
was brought by her parents to the basilica of the
martyrs.

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 169

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.*

The enumeration of all these iniquities, in
oratorical style, takes np 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 pros-
trate 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

*In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite accusations
against witches was that they committed just these enor-
mities.

170 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

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 Translatiouis '' 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 re-
garded as hyper-scepticism. It might fairly be said.
Here you have a man, whose liio-h 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 with-
in 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?

AVell, 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 mi-
raculous. 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

T WITNESS TO THE MmACULOUS lYl

letter of Deacon Deiisdona. 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 ; * 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 Ilildoin, 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 (Ilildoin) sent with them a certain priest,
Hunus by name, a sharp man {Jiominem 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
Eeginbakl, 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 Eome, Reginbald liad a vision.
Somebody habited as a deacon appeared to him

* Tt is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about
the deacon, wliosc pledges he qualifies a,s spo7isiones i7icerfcE.
But, to bo sure, he wrote after events which fully justified
scepticism.

jC

lO

say so, but it

ity of the man

. witness to the mi-

- it quite obvious that

, comes on the stage, his

;i his perception of right and

'xit. Let us go back to the

left him, secretly perusing the

MIRACULOUS 173

fi

fc

fQ first placto the
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nd cautiouy and
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out any on being
adjoinin g i. pt, in
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lest

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mr events wlUiH

tem-

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174 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

up with the greatest veneration, wrapped in a rich
coveringj and given over to the keeping of the
deacon and his brother, Lnnison, 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 Eoman law, it
seems not unnatural that Deacon Deusdona should
have become uneasy, and have urged Katleig 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 resurrec-
tionist 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 com-
plicity in these transactions, does not appear. But

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 175

at last the relics were sent of? in charge of Liinison,
the brotlier of Deusclona, and the priest Hnniis, as
far as Pavia, while Eatleig 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 Ilunus 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 anvthino^
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 scrupu-
lous than himself.

On going to the palace early one morning,

after the saints were safely bestowed at Seligen-

stadt, 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
127

176 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

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 Ilunus
and Lunison were at Pavia, waiting for Egin-
hard's notary, Hunus (according to his own ac-
count) 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 " sliarp " 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 be-
come 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 ; * and taking out portions of each of the bodies

* The words arc scrinia sine clave, which seems to mean
" having no key." But the circumstances forbid the idea of
breaking open.

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 1^7

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.)

Hilcloin went on to tell Eginliard that Iluniis
at first declared to him that these purloined relics
belonged to St. Tibiirtiiis; but afterwards con-
fessed, as a great secret, how he had come by
them, and he wound up his discourse tlius:

They have a place of honour beside St. Mcdardus, where
they are worshipped with great veneration by all the peoi)Ie ;
but whetiier we may keep them or not is for your judgment
(Cap. iii. 23.)

Poor Eginliard was tlirown into a state of
great perturbation oi' mind by this revelation.
An acquaintance of his had recently told him of a
rumour tliat was spread about tliat Ilunus 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 Ilildoin's hands at St. Me-
dardus, the shrine at Seligenstadt contained noth-
ing but a little dust. Though greatly annoyed
by this " execrable rumour, spread everywhere by
the subtlety of the devil," Eginliard had doubtless
comforted himself by his supposed knowledge of
its falsity, and he only now discovered how con-
siderable a foundation there was for the scandal.
There was notliing for it but to insist u])on the
return of the stolen treasures. One would have

17S WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

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 na-
ture 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 confi-
dence; 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 busi-
ness. They, hoAvever, at once protested that priest
Hunus's story was a parcel of lies, and that after
the relics left Eome no one had any opportu-
nity 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. Mar-
cellinus was abstracted from its tomb, Ratleig de-
posited it in the house of Deusdona, in charge
of the latter's brother, Lunison. But Hunus, be-
ing 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

V WITNESS TO TEE MIRACULOUS 179

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 al)out 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 con-
tract with Deusdona for the delivery of certain
relics which the latter says he possesses. Egin-
hard 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

ISO WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

Hiiniis 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 ac-
quisition 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 con-
victions, 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 super-
stitious among our modern countrymen turn to
suj)ernatural agencies only when natural causes
seem insuificient; 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

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 181

coveted, not only on high, but on very low
grounds. To a man like Eginhard, the mere
satisfaction of the religious sentiment was ob-
viously 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 in-
terposition 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, Avritten
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 any-
thing but satisfied with the way in which he has
been treated by the blessed martyrs whose re-
mains he has taken such pains to " convey " to
Seligenstadt, and to honour there as they would
never have been honoured in their Eoman ob-
scurity.

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 wliich we placed in the merits and intervention of the
martyrs has been utterly disappointed.

We may admit, then, without impeachment of

182 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

Eginharcl'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, any-
thing 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 hys-
terical nun, or of the professional beggars, for
whose incapacity to walk and straighten them-
selves there is no guarantee but their own? Who
is to make sure that the exorcist of the demon
Wiggo was not just such another jjriest 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 in-
quirer 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 su])-
posed), 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

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 183

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 be-
long to classes of disease in which malingering
is possible or hysteria presumable. Without mod-
ern 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 ob-
vious that, as not unfrequently happens in such
accidents in weakly subjects, the jaws slipped sud-
denly back into place, perhaps* in consequence
of a jolt, as the woman rode towards the church.
(Cap. V. 53.) *

There is also a good deal said about a very
questionable blind man one Albricus (Alberich?)
wlio, having been cured, not of his blindness,
but of another disease under which he laboured,
took up his quarters at Seligenstadt, and came out

incantations.' v hiii enou^n, no (louui, uul me niuiiercuKii
mij2:ht have returned the epithet " superstitious " with in-
terest.

184 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

as a prophet, inspired by the Archangel Gabriel.
Eginhard intimates that his prophecies were ful-
filled; but as he does not state exactly what they
were, or how they were accomplished, the state-
ment 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 guaran-
tees 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 peo-
l^le who would be very much shocked to be com-
pared with a ^' benighted pajiist " of the ninth cen-
tury.

The readers of this essay are, I imagine, very
largely composed of people who would be shocked
to be regarded as anything but enlightened Prot-
estants. It is not unlikely that those of them
who have accompanied me thus far may be dis-
posed 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

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 185

by the spolia of SS. Marcellinns and Petrus, or by
those of any other saints in the lioman Calendar."
Tlie practical interest is this: if you do not be-
lieve in these miracles recounted by a witness
whose character and competency are firmly estab-
lished, whose sincerity cannot be doubted, and
who appeals to his sovereign and other contempo-
raries as witnesses of the truth of what he savs, in
a document of which a MS. copy exists, probably
dating within a century of the authors 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 con-
trary may be alleged. If, therefore, you refuse to
believe that " Wiggo " was cast out of the pos-
sessed girl on Eginhard's authority, with what jus-
tice 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-

1S6 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS t

worship of the modern Komanists? 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 insuffi-
cient 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.*

But it may be said that no serious critic denies
the genuineness of the four great Pauline Epistles
Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, and
Eomans and that in three out of these four Paul
lays claim to the power of working miracles, f
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

* 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.

\ See 1 Cor. xii. 10-28 ; 2 Cor. vi. 12 ; Rora. xv. 19.

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 187

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 for-
mer, and yet think his opinion as to the latter
worthless. If Eginhard's calm and objective nar-
rative of the historical events of his time is no
guarantee for the soundness of his judgment where
the supernatural is concerned, the heated rhet-
oric of the Apostle of the Gentiles, his absolute
confidence in the " inner light," and the ex-
traordinary conceptions of the nature and re-
quirements 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 ob^dous particulars,
yet, if I am not mistaken, shares his deepest char-
acteristics. I speak of George Fox, who separated
himself from the current Protestantism of Eng-
land, in the seventeenth century, as Paul sepa-

188 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

rated himself from the Judaism of the first cen-
tury, at tlie bidding of tlie " inner light ^'; who
went through persecutions as serious as those
which Paul enumerates; who was beaten, stoned,
cast out for dead, imprisoned nine times, some-
times 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 founda-
tion of the sect, there were 70,000 Quakers in the
United Kingdom. The cheerfulness wdth which
these people women as well as men underwent
martyrdom in this country and in the New Eng-
land States is one of the most remarkable facts in
the history of religion.

No one who reads the voluminous autobiog-
raphy of " Honest George ^^ can doubt the man's
utter truthfulness; and though, in his multitudin-
ous letters, he but rarely rises for above the inco-
herent 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

V WITNESS TO THE MIHACULOUS 189

amount of practical good sense and governing
faculty.

But tliat George Fox had full faitli in his own
powers as a miracle-worker, the following passage
of his autobiography (to which others might be
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 after-
wards 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 infir-
mities, 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.*

It needs no long study of Fox's writings, how-
ever, to arrive at the conviction that the distinc-

* A Journal or Historical Accoiint of the Life, Travels,
Sufferings, and Christian Experiences, tf-c, of George Fox.
Ed. 1694, pp. 27, 28.

190 WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS v

tion 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 hy 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 ivho
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

V WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS 191

and some other passages he could write, his as-
tounding influence on the contemporaries of Mil-
ton 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 glory-
ing 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.

138

VI

POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES

[1891]

In the course of a discussion which has been
going on during the last two years,* 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 in-
spired, 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 wTiters of the Gospels believed in the existence
of Satan and the subordinate ministers of evil as

* 1889-1891. See the next Essay (VII) and those which
follow it.

192

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 193

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 tradi-
tions 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 ques-
tioned 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 overestimated. If the demon-
ological part of it is to be accepted, the authority
of Jesus is unmistakably pledged to the demono-
logical system current in Judgea in the first cen-
tury. 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 sujDer-

194 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

stitious imaginings of the minds through which it
had passed, what guarantee have we that a similar
unconscious falsification, in accordance with pre-
conceived 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 posi-
tion 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 con-
fined 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 coin-
cident, 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.

Tlius 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

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 195

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 de-
monic 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 de-
clare a priori that the existence of such entities
was " impossible." I was, however, no less care-
ful 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 peril-
ous 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 en-
tering upon a process of retrogressive metamor-
phosis which might eventually give me a place
among the respectabilities. The prospect, per-
haps, 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, thir-
teen years ago, in discussing Hume's essay on
" Miracles," I had quoted, with entire assent, the

196 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

following passage from his writings: "Whatever
is intelligible and can be distinctly conceived im-
plies no contradiction, and can never be proved
false by any demonstrative argument or abstract
reasoning a priori.'' *

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 contradic-
tion.^' No doubt, in our experience, intelligence
and volition are always found in connection with a
certain material organisation, and never discon-
nected with it; while, by the hypothesis, demons
have no such material substratum. But then, as
everybody knows, the exact relation between men-
tal and physical phenomena, even in ourselves,
is the subject of endless dispute. We may all
have our opinions as to whether mental phenom-
ena have a substratum distinct from that which
is assumed to underlie material phenomena, or
not; though if any one thinks he has demonstra-
tive evidence of either the existence or the non-
existence of a " soul,'' all I can say is, his notion

* Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, p. 5 ;
1748. The passage is cited and discussed in my Hume, pp.
132, 133.

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 197

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 " impossibili-
ties." The idea of their existence implies no more
" contradiction " than does the idea of the exist-
ence 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 " impossibil-
ity " 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 procrea-
tion 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. ISTaturalists are familiar
with insects which walk on water, and imagination
has no more difficulty in putting a man in place of

198 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

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. Undoubt-
edly, 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 with-
out mechanical aid. Indeed, if we have any rea-
son to believe that our present knowledge of the
nature of things exhausts the possibilities of na-
ture, 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 suffi-
ciently obvious, not only that we are at the be-
ginning of our knowledge of nature, instead of
having arrived at the end of it, but that the limi-
tations 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 happen-
ing and of what has happened; of what will hap-
pen we have and can have no more than expecta-
tion, grounded on our more or less correct reading
of past experience and prompted by the faith, be-
gotten of that experience, that the order of nature
in the future w411 resemble its order in the past.
The same considerations apply to the other

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 199

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 con-
trary 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 arrange-
ment.

As for virgin procreation, it is not only clearly
imaginable, but modern biology recognises it as
an every-day 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 incapa-
city 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

200 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

was dead is even more remarkable than the in-
sufficiency of the testimony as to his coming to
life again.

It may he urged, however, that there is, at
any rate, one miracle certified by all three of the
Synoptic Gospels which really does " imply a con-
tradiction,^^ 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

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 201

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 experi-
ence of the capabilities of cooked food may justify
us in holding it to be.

On the strength of this undeniable improba-
bility, however, we not only have a right to de-
mand, 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,* which also concur in testifying to the

* The story in John vi. 5-14 is obviously derived from the
" five thousand " narrative of the Synoptics.

202 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

truth of the monstrous legend of the herd of
swine. In these three books, there are five ac-
counts of a " miraculous feeding," which fall into
two groups. Three of the stories, obviously de-
rived from some common source, state that five
loaves and two fishes sufficed to feed five thousand
persons, and that twelve baskets of fragments re-
mained 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 sup-
pose 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 cur-
rent about Jesus. This view of the case, however,
is incompatible with a belief in the historical
accuracy of the first and second gospels.* 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 manv baskets full of
broken pieces took ye up? They say unto him,
twelve. x\nd wlien the seven among the four

* Matthew xvi. 5-12 ; Mark viii. 14-31.

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 203

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 deter-
mined by no a 'priori speculations about the possi-
bility 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 per-
sons, without any additional supply, of this quan-
tity 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 proba-
bility and improbability may be, satisfactory testi- '
mony 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 unex-
pected example of the possibilities of nature.

204: POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

But when, instead of such evidence, nothing
is produced but two sets of discrepant stories,
originating nobody knows how or when, among
persons wlio could believe as firmly in devils which
enter pigs, I confess that my feeling is one of
astonishment that any one should expect a rea-
sonable man to take such testimony seriously.

I am anxious to bring about a clear under-
standing of the difference between " impossibili-
ties ^' and " improbabilities/^ because mistakes on
this point lay us open to the attacks of ecclesias-
tical 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 ex-
perience can warrant us in anything more than
a correspondingly strong expectation for the pres-
ent and future. We find, practically, that ex-

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 205

pectations, based upon careful observations of past
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 proba-
bilities. 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 foun-
dations of rational certainty. I have merely de-
sired to point out that rational certainty is one
thing, and talk about " impossibilities," or " viola-
tion of natural laws," another. Eational 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 insuffi-
cient. In the former case, the statement is to be
taken as true, in tlie latter as untrue; until some-

206 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

thing arises to modify the verdict, which, however
proj^erly 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
im|)osed 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 pro-
gress of free thought can make is to overlook these
limitations, and to deck ourselves with the dog-
matic feathers which are the traditional adorn-
ment 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 im-
possibilities; but I am not more certain about any-
thing, 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 mon-
strous 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

VI POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES 207

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 arc requisite
to give us a full assurance in the testimony of
men" *

The preceding paper called forth the following criticism
signed " Agnosco," to which I append my reply :

While aj^reeing generally with Professor Huxley's remarks
respecting mircles, 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 ad-
duced is not sufficient to render them probable, refers to the
possibility of changing water into wine by molecular re-
composition. 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

* Hume, Inquiry, sec. x., part ii.
129

208 POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES vi

that miracles (so-called) have a prospective possibility, Pro-
fessor Huxley loses sight at least, so it appears to me of
the question of their retrospective possibility. For, if it re-
quires 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 ques-
tion of the retrospective possibility of miracles is more im-
portant to us Rationalists, and, for the matter of that, to
Christians also, than the question of their prospective possi-
bility, 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 con-
version of water into wine. If \ve may contemplate such an
event as " possiVjle " in London in the year 1900, it must, in
the same sense, have been " possible " in the year 30 (or there-
abouts) 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 im-
possible, that evidence is worth nothing. To leave the safe
ground of " no evidence " for speculations about impossi-
bilities, 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 knowl-
edge. T. H. Huxley.

VII

AGNOSTICISM
[1889]

Within the last few months, the public has
received much and varied information on the sub-
ject of agnostics, their tenets, and even their
future. Agnosticism exercised the orators of the
Church Congress at Manchester.* 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 elo-
quent of that prophetical school whose Samuel is
Auguste Comte. It may still be a question, how-
ever, 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

* See the Official Report of the Church Co7igress held at
Manchester, October 1888, pp. 253, 254.

209

210 AGNOSTICISM vn

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 knowl-
edge 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 be-
lieve 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.*

So much of Dr. Wace's address either explicit-
ly 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;

* [In this place and in the eleventh essay, there are refer-
ences to the late Archbishop of York which are of no im-
portance to my main argument, and which I have expunged
because I desire to obliterate the traces of a temporary mis-
understanding with a man of rare ability, candour, and wit,
for whom I entertained a great likinc: 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.]

VII AGNOSTICISM 211

and if there be^ I am not its acknowledged
prophet or pope. 1 desire to leave to the Comtists
the entire monopoly of the manufacture of imi-
tation ecclesiasticism.

Let us calmly and dispassionately consider Dr.
Wace's appreciation of agnosticism. The agnos-
tic, 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 pro-
ceed 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, wdiich authority
is Jesus Christ. He is simply an old-fashioned
" infidel " who is afraid to own to his right name.
As " Presbyter is priest w^^it large," so is " ag-
nostic " the mere Greek equivalent for the Latin
" infidel." There is an attractive simplicity about
this solution of the problem; and it has that ad-
vantage of being somewhat offensive to the

212 AGNOSTICISM vii

persons attacked, which is so dear to the less re-
fined sort of controversialist. The agnostic says,
" I cannot find good evidence that so and so is
true." " Ah," says his adversary, seizing his op-
portunity, " 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 deter-
mine. If I venture to doubt that the Duke of
Wellington gave the command " Up, Guards, and
at 'em! " at \Yaterloo, 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 wliat
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 tliat their investigations have begun to con-
verge towards one conclusion.*

* Dr. Wace tells us, " It may be asked how far we can
rely on the accounts we possess of our Lord's teaching on

VII AGNOSTICISM 213

That kind of faith which Dr. "Wace describes
and lauds is of no use here. Indeed, he himself
takes pains to destroy its evidential A^alue.

" What made the Mahommedan world? Trust
and faith in the declarations and assurances of
Mahommed. x\nd what made the Christian
world? Trust and faith in the declarations and
assurances of Jesus Christ and His Apostles "
{I. 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 ]\Iahommed 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

these subjects." And he seems to think the question appro-
priately answered by the assertion that it " ought to be regard-
ed as settled by M. Kenan's practical surrender of the adverse
case." I thought I knew M. Kenan'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. How-
ever, as Dr. Wace can find no difficulty in pointing out the
passage of M. Kenan's writings, by which he feels justified
in making his statement, I shall wait for further enlighten-
ment, contenting myself, for the present, with remarking
that if M. Kenan 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,
Keuss, and Volkmar, for example, would not be sensibly
affected.

214 AGNOSTICISM yit

'^niade the Christian world/^ must he trust and
faith in falsehoods. No man who has studied
history, or even attended to the occurrences of
everyday life, can douht the enormous practical
value of trust and faith; hut as little will he he
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
Bahism.*

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 " Eohert 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 consderation 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 state-
ment, to all apppearance intended to have the
same evidential value as any other contained in

* [See De Gobinean, Les Religions et lea Philosophies
dans VAsie Centrale : and the recently published work of
Mr. E. G. Browne, The Episode of the Bah.^

VII AGNOSTICISM 215

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 he no douht
that the narrator intends to convey to his readers
his own conviction that this casting out and en-
tering in were effected hy the agency of Jesus
of ISTazareth; that, hy speech and action, Jesus
enforced this conviction; nor does any inkling
of the legal and moral difficulties of the case mani-
fest itself.

On the other hand, everything that I know of
physiological and pathological science leads me to
entertain a very strong conviction that the phe-
nomena 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 posses-
sion is a mere survival of a once universal super-
stition, and that its persistence, at the present
time, is pretty much in the inverse ratio of the
general instruction, intelligence, and sound judg-
ment of the population among whom it prevails.
Everything that I know of law and justice con-
vinces 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

216 AGNOSTICISM vii

on my mind that the belief in the reality of
possession and of witchcraft, justly based, alike
by Catholics and Protestants, upon this and innu-
merable other passages in both the Old and New
Testaments, gave rise, through the special in-
fluence 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 witch-
craft 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 declara-
tion was withheld out of condescension to popular
error.

" Come forth, thou unclean spirit, out of the
man '' (Mark v. 8),* 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 possi-
bilitv of their " cominoj 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 dis-
belief " in these things." As the learned and

* Here, as always, the revised version is cited.

VII AGNOSTICISM 217

fair-minded, as well as orthodox, Dr. Alexander
remarks, in an editorial note to the article
" Demoniacs," in the " Biblical Cyclopasdia " (vol.
i. p. GG4, 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 ety-
mological 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 Sai/jLoviCca-Oai, or the phrase, SaifiSfiov ex*'"* ^^ a popular
description of certain diseases, without giving in to the be-
lief 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, Fi'el. 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

218 AGNOSTICISM vii

the iitmost 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 be-
lief in demons and possession current among his
contemporaries. If the story is true, the mediseval
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 in-
evitable that his authority on matters connected
with the " unseen world " should be roughly

VII AGNOSTICISM 219

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,* is stopped in this in-
stance. For the question of the existence of de-
mons 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 de-
mons, 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

* Does any one really mean to say that there is any inter-
nal 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 bo taken au serieux or not? Is
the account of the Dehi,c:e, 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 crention or that of the Deluge, with which it
forms an harmoniously legendary series.

220 AGNOSTICISM vii

relations to it becomes totally different from what
it would be on the contrary hypothesis.

The theory of life of an average mediseval
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 re-
turn 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 be-
lieves the Gadarene story.

The choice then lies between discrediting those
who compiled the Gospel biographies and dis-
believing 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. ISTo 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 221

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 criti-
cism 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 con-
clusion 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.*

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

* See, for an admirable discussion of the whole subject.
Dr. Abbott's article on the Gospels in the Encyclopadia
Britannica ; and the remarkable monograph by Professor
Volkraar, 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.

222 AGNOSTICISM vn

were, certainly accepted that belief (which, indeed,
was universal among both Jews and pagans at
that time), and attributed it to Jesus.

AVhat, then, do we know about the originator,
or originators, of this groundwork of that three-
fold tradition which all three witnesses (in Paley's
phrase) agree upon that we should allow their
mere statements to outweigh the counter argu-
ments 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.* There is no proof, no-
thing 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, l:)ut 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

* Notwithstanding the hard words shot at me from be-
hind the hedge of anonymity by a writer in a recent num-
ber of the Quarterly Beview, I repeat, without the slightest
fear of refutation, that the four Gospels, as they have come
to us, are the work of unknown writers.

VII AGNOSTICISM 223

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 evi-
dence 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 settle-
ment 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 wdien 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 tlie

oldest codices which have come down to us; or if,
130

224 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 athrm
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 intel-
lectual hal)its, very uncritical critics. Wlien one
thinks that such delicate questions as those in-
volved fell into the hands of men like Papias
(who believed in the famous millenarian grape
story); of Irena^us with his "reasons^' for the ex-
istence 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 mat-
ter. 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 225

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 be-
cause 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, be-
cause 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

226 AGNOSTICISM vii

story without, as he said, " giving it a new hat
and stick/' Most of us differ from Sir AValter
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 re-
gions 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 man-
kind, are strongly concerned; and, when they are
involved, to require corroborative evidence in ex-
act 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 tcenice and tricMnm, which can be
transferred from men to pigs,., and vice versa, and
which do undoubtedly produce most diabolical and

VII AGNOSTICISM 22T

deadly eftects on both. For anything I can ab-
solutely prove to the contrary, there may be spir-
itual 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 un-
able to show cause why these transferable devils
should not exist; nor can I deny that, not merely
the whole Roman Church, but many AVaccan " in-
fidels " of no mean repute, do honestly and firmly
believe that the activity of such like demonic be-
ings 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
dcmonology, ancient and modern, I conceive their
evidence on this particular matter to be ridicu-
lously insufficient to warrant their conclusion.*

* Their arprnmont?!. in the lone: run. are always reducible
to one form. Otherwise trustworthv witnesses afTirm that
snch and such events took place. These events are inex-
plicable, except the agency of " spirits " is admitted. There-
fore " spirits " were the cause of the phenomena.

And the heads of the reply arc always the same. Re-

228 AGNOSTICISM tti

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 dis-
credited, all the other stories of demoniac posses-
sion fall under suspicion. And if the belief in
demons and demoniac possession, which forms the
sombre background of the whole picture of primi-
tive Christianity, presented to us in the New Tes-
tament, 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

inember 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 phenom-
ena, 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 ut-
most 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, ac-
cording to their views of probability.

VII AGNOSTICISM 229

of the unpleasantness of bein;^ 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 inspec-
tion. 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 ])y the bleeding ascetic,
broken down by physical pain, of too many
media:ival 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?

230 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 sat-
isfactorily answered, I say of agnosticism in this
matter, " J^y suis, et fy 7'este."

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." AVell, 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 pre-
fer, 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 be-
fore 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 Xazarenes,"
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,"

VII AGNOSTICISM 231

reverenced alike by Sadducee, Pharisee, and Naza-
rene? At the famous conference which, accord-
ing 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 Chris-
tianity leave any doubt that, from this time forth,
the " little rift within the lute " caused by the new
teaching, developed, if not inaugurated, at An-
tioch, grew wider and wider, until the two types of
doctrines irreconcilably diverged? Did not the
primitive Nazarenism, or Ebionisin, 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 w^ere to pro-
fess 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

232 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 nar-
row was even PauFs 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 Naza-
renes 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 Mas-
ter. 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

vn AGNOSTICISM 233

Jcsns, recorded in the Gospels, which directly bear
on the question sometimes, apparently, in oppo-
site directions?

So, if I am asked to call myself an " infidel,"
I reply: To what doctrine do yon 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, w^ould have stopped their ears and thought
worthy of stoning the audacious man who pro-
pounded 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 com-
motion at Pella in the year 70, among the Naza-
renes of Jerusalem, who had fled from the soldiers
of Titus. And yet, if the unadulterated tradition
of the teachings of " the ISTazarene " were to be
found anywhere, it surely should have been amidst
tliose not very aged disciples who may have beard
them as they were delivered.

Therefore, however sorry I may be to be un-
able 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 Chris-
tians 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 etymo-
logical signification, has the advantage of being
still more " unpleasant " to the persons to whom

234 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 utter-
ance 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 ethi-
cally, defensible that a Christian should call a
Mahommedan an infidel and vice versa; but, on
Dr. Wace's principles, both ought to call them-
selves infidels, because each applies the term to
the other.

Now I am afraid that all the Mahommedan
world would agree in reciprocating that appella-
tion 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 un-
provided 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 235

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 suffi-
ciently clear that Dr. Wace's account of the origin
of the name of " Agnostic " is quite wrong. In-
deed, 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
vet 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, alto-
gether 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 indel-
ible impressions on my mind. One was Guizot's
" History of Civilization," the other was Sir
William Hamilton's essay " On the Philosophy of

236 AGNOSTICISM vii

the ITnconditioned," which I came iipon, by
chance, in an odd volume of the " Edinburgh
Eeview/^ The latter vras certainly strange reading
for a boy, and I could not possibly have under-
stood a great deal of it; * 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 limita-
tion of our faculties, in a great number of cases,
renders real answers to such questions, not merely
actually impossible, but theoretically inconceiv-
able.

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

* Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the
matter, for, many years afterwards, when Dean Mansel's
T'ampton Lectures were published, it seemed to me I already
knew all that this eminently agnostic thinker had to tell me.

VII AGNOSTICISM 237

know what answer he had to give to the questions
I had to put to him that of the limitation of pos-
sihle kiiowledge being the chief. The ordinary
examiner, witli 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 else-
where.

" 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.'*' *

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 conclu-

* Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edit. Ilartenstein, p. 256.

238 AGNOSTICISM vii

sion 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,
solYed the problem of existence; while I was
quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong con-
viction that the problem was insoluble. And, with
Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think
myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opin-
ion. 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 an-
other 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 239

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 philo-
sophical and theological opinion was represented
there, and expressed itself with entire openness;
most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or an-
other; 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 histori-
cal 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 sug-
gestively 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 So-
ciety, 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
131

240 AGNOSTICISM vii

" agnostic " and " agnosticism "; and it will be
observed that it does not quite agree with the con-
fident 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 in-
volves a mere evasion " in relation to the Church
and Christianity.*

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 de-
clares 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 " (/. c. p. 254).

Whether it is so depends, I imagine, a good
deal on wdiether 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 " un-
pleasant 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

* Rejjort of the Church Congress, Manchester, 18&8, p. 252.

VII AGNOSTICISM 241

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 imagi-
nations of Hell would pale beside the vision.

A thousand times, no! It ought not to be un-
pleasant 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 man-
kind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty
of word or of deed, without erecting a sad con-
comitant 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
fell 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 ex-
tremely unpleasant; and I am much disposed to
think that the encouragement, the consolation, and
the jieace afforded to earnest believers in even the

242 AGNOSTICISM vn

worst forms of Christianity are of great practical
advantage to thenl. 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 exclu-
siveness and domination of those that count them-
selves 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 tlie
overpowering terror of possible damnation, which
have accompanied the Churches like tlieir 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 retracta-
tion, or fail to get properly baptized before you die,
and a plebiscite of the Christians of Europe, if

VII AGNOSTICISM 243

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 demon-
strated by ratiocination. It is also a trite obser-
vation 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

244 AGNOSTICISM vii

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, vTToo-raa-ts and eXeyxo^) affords a fine field
of discussion for the scholar and the nietai)hysi-
cian. 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 con-
stantly 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 feel-
ing " 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 245

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 ]\Ir. 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 ag-
nostics, they have no creed; and, by the nature of
the case, cannot have any. Agnosticism, in fact,
is not a creed, but a method, tlie essence of which
lies in the rigorous application of a single prin-
ciple. 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 sim-
ply illustrated the axiom that ever}' man should l)e

246 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 knowl-
edge 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 demon-
strable limitation of our faculties. And the only
obligation accepted is to have the mind always
open to conviction. Agnostics v/ho 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

vn AGNOSTICISM 247

agree with you if lie 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 agnos-
ticism"? * 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

* Fortniglithj Review, Jan. 1889.

248 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 Chris-
tianity 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 com-
mon 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 crea-
ture who deserves patting on the back, on con-
dition 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 2i9

the Eeligion of Humanity is accepted by man-
kind. 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
Eome, 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

250 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 he 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 spon-
taneously 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 he 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 agnos-
ticism 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 251

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 Eonmlus and Eemus, 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 founda-
tions of orthodox Christian doctrine owes its
origin, not to the devotees of physical science, but,
before all, to Eichard 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 his-
tories is untrue. Indeed, modern physiology can
find parallels in nature for events of apparently

252 AGNOSTICISM vii

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 " incon-
sistent,'' passes my poor powers of imagination.
But with universal sufi^rage 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 sufi^rage.
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

Yii AGNOSTICISM 253

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, analy-
sis, 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 state-
ment 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 permis-
sible to draw the conclusion that Mr. Harrison's
other labours have not allowed him to acquire
that acquaintance with the methods and results
of 2^hysical science, or with the history of phi-
losophy, 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

254 AGNOSTICISM vn

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 helpful-
ness 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 neces-
sary want of knowledge, some other hypostasis of
men's hopes, genuine enough and worthy enough

VII AGNOSTICISM 255

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 wor-
shipped, it is little likely to permit the pitiful
reality to climb into the vacant shrine.

That a man should determine to devote him-
self to the service of humanity including intel-
lectual 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 accept-
able so long as the human race endures. But
when the Comtist asks me to worship " Human-
ity '' that is to say, to adore the generalised con-
ception of men as they ever have been and prob-
ably 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
132

256 AGNOSTICISM vii

the bitter jest, ^' Ut puto Deus fio." iSTo 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 divin-
ity 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 sad-
dening 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 end-
less 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

VII AGNOSTICISM 257

when he has moved on a step^ foolishly confers
post-mortem deification on his victims. He ex-
actly 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, for-
give 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 aber-
rations. 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 Em-
peror Julian's project was hopeful in compari-
son with the prospects of the Comtist Anthro-
polatry.

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

258 AGNOSTICISM vii

Eepublic^ which, though comparatively insignifi-
cant, 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 in-
telligence of its population than for the wide ex-
tent of their information, owing to the activity of
their publishers in diffusing all that the}'' 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 na-
ture 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 contempti-
ble 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 daring one of which perse-
cutions Smith was brutally murdered the Mor-
mon body steadily increased, and became a flour-
ishing community. But the Mormon practices be-
ing objectionable to the majority, they were, more
than once, without any pretence of law, but by

VII AGNOSTICISM 259

force of riot, arson, and murder, driven away from
the land they had occupied. Harried by these per-
secutions, the Mormon body eventually committed
itself to the tender mercies of a desert as barren as
that of Sinai; and after terrible sufferings and pri-
vations, reached the Oasis of Utah. Here it grew
and flourished, sending out missionaries to, and
receiving converts from, all parts of Europe, some-
times to the number of 10,000 in a year; until, in
1880, the rich and flourishing community num-
bered 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 Eepublic and its citizens runs exactly parallel
with that taken by the Eoman 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 " soda-
litia " were not licensed, and consequently were,
ipso facto, illegal assemblages. Until, in the lat-
ter part of the nineteenth century, the United
States legislature decreed the illegality of polyg-
amy, 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

2C0 AGNOSTICISM vii

Mormons, in the upper and most instructed stra-
tum of the quick-witted, sceptical population of
Paris. The founder, Auguste Comte, was a teach-
er 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 wdiich
proposes to regulate all human life by the pro-
mulgation of a Gentile Leviticus. Sufhce it to
say, that M. Comte may be described as a syn-
cretic, 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 wdiy 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 con-
troversial 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.

VII AGNOSTICISM 2G1

Well, I will put your shell over it, and so, as
sehoolbo3's make a spectre out of a turnip and a
tallow candle, behold the new religion of Human-
ity 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 ap-
pears 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 dis-
advantage of being refined, estimable people, liv-
ing 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 ma-
jority 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

262 AGNOSTICISM vii

of the century is highly instructive. Mormon-
ism . . .

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 pro-
phetical business, and ought not to have under-
taken 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 Eeligion,
as taught by Comte. I have, therefore, erased
one or two passages, which implied his adherence
to the " Eeligion of Humanity '^ as developed by
Comte, 1893.]

VIII
AGN^OSTICISM: A EEJOIXDER

[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 Xew 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

2G3

261 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

dealing with the greater part of Dr. Wace's po-
lemic, and enables me to devote more space to
the really important issues which have been
raised.*

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, Linna3us, 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. AVace 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

* 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.

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 265

that in this, as in some other respects, he has
entertained a very erroneous conception of my in-
tentions. Thincfs 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.
AYace'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 two-
pence, 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 conven-
tions 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. AVace com-
plains. 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

266 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viri

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,* 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.f It is true that, to the best of my
ability, I have satisfied myself of the soundness of

* The United States ought, perhaps, to be added, but I
am not sure.

f Imagine that all our chairs of astronomy had been
founded in the fourteenth century, and that their incum-
bents 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 267

the foundations on which my arguments are built,
and I desire to be held fully responsible for every-
thing I say. But, nevertheless, my position is
really no more than that of an expositor; and my
justification for undertaking it is simply that con-
viction of the supremacy of private judgment (in-
deed, 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 rudi-
ments '' 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 ques-
tions of " washing of cups and pots and brazen
vessels," which the Master, whose professed rep-
resentatives are rending the Church over these

sense would ^o elsewhere to learn astronomy. Zeller's
Vortrdgp. und Ahlwndlnngen were published and came into
my hands a quarter of a century ac:o. The writer's rank,
as a theoloe^ian to besfin with, and subsequently as a his-
torian of Greek philosophy, is of the highest. Among these
essays are two Das Urchrisfenthum. and Die Tubinger
hrsfon'sche Schnle 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 Vorirdge.

268 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER vjii

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 honoiireth 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 mis-
erable 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
bv the so-called Christians of later times; it is
so clear that the only immediate and ready an-
tidote to the poison which has been mixed with
Christianity, to the intoxication and delusion of

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJ0INDJ:R 269

mankind, lies in copious draughts from the un-
defiled spring, that I exercise the right and duty
of free judgment on the part of every man, main-
ly 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 compe-
tent 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 de-
ductions which, at any rate, profess to be the re-
sult 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 Chris-
tianity? And what is historical truth but that of

270 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

which the evidence bears strict scientific investi-
gation? I do not call to mind any problem of
natural science which has come under my notice
which is more difficult, or more curiously in-
teresting as a mere problem, than that of the
origin of the Synoptic Gospels and that of the
historical value of the narratives which they con-
tain. The Christianity of the Churches stands
or falls by the results of the purely scientific in-
vestigation of these questions. They were first
taken up, in a purely scientific spirit, about a cen-
tury ago; they have been studied over and over
again by men of vast knowledge and critical acu-
men; 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 cer-
tainly false, while others are more or less prob-
ably 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 theolo-
gian. 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 Avhether 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 271

of the faitliful 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 quali-
fied predecessors.

In my former papers, according to Dr. AYace,
I have evaded giving an answer to his main propo-
sition, which he states as follows

Apart from all disputed points of criticism, no one prac-
tically 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
133

272 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

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 Pro-
fessor 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 Ser-
mon on the Mount afford a true account of our Lord's es-
sential 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 inter-
dependent,* and that in one of two ways. Either

* 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-3Iarcus (p. 367). That a " theo-

viii AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 273

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 repre-
sents the primitive groundwork of the three.*
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 tradi-
tion, whether written or oral, how comes it that it

Ionian of repute " should confound an indisputable fact
with one of the modes of explaining that fact is not so sin-
gular as those who are unaccustomed to the ways of theo-
logians might imagine.

* 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 Gos-
pels, by Dr. Abbott and Mr. Rushbrooke (Macmillan, 1884).
To those who have not passed through such painful experi-
ences I may recommend the brief discussion of the gen-
uineness of the " Casket Letters " in my friend Mr. Skelton's
interesting book, 3Iaitland of Lethington. The second edi-
tion of Holtziuann's Lehrbuch, published in 1886, gives a re-
markably fair and full account of the present results of criti-
cism. 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 (sach-
kundige) critics differ," and he decides in favour of Mark.

274: AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

contains neither the " Sermon on the Mount " nor
the " Lord's Prayer/' those t3^pical 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.

viii AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 275

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 Evan-
gelists 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 correspond-
ences 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 expo-
sition of the ethical spirit of the command given
in Leviticus xix. 18. And each ends with a pas-
sage 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

276 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

length of tlie 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 histori-
callv 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. Consequentl}^ we are to suppose that
Peter either did not know, or did not care very
much for, that account of the " essential belief

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 277

and cardinal teaching'' of Jesus which is con-
tained in the Sermon on the Mount; and,' certainly,
he' could not have shared Dr. Wace's view of its
importance.*

I thought that all fairly attentive and intelli-
gent 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 reason-
able 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 his-
torians 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 rep-
resented by " Matthew " would have been griev-

* Holtzmann {Die synoptischen Evangelien, 1868, p. 75),
following Ewald, argues that the " Source. A " (= the three-
fold tradition, more or less) contained something that an-
swered 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 if? 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."

278 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

onsly astonished to find that any one objected to
his follotv'ing 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 pions Jew, at the commence-
ment of our era, prayed three times a day,
according to a formula which is embodied in the
present " Schmone-Esre " * 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 Gen-
tiles, 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 pro-
pounded 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

* See Schurer, OescMchte des judischen VolJces, Zweiter
Thiel, p. 384,

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 279

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 sj^mptoms,
at once, arise from the wounds made by the nails
in the hands and feet, supposing they were nailed,
w^hich 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

280 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

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 ex-
pected, 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 281

deposited in a spacious,* 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 coun-
try 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 in-
herent probability of that narrative; and, for my
part, I am quite ready to accept it as an historical

* Spacious, because a youn^ man could sit in it " on the
right side '' (xv. 5), und therefore with plenty of room to spare.

2S2 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

fact, that so mucli and no more is positively known
of the end of Jesus of ISTazareth. 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 eves were
blind to the ecstatic illumination of the mar-
tyr'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.

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 283

Yet this strange man, because he has a vision
one daj;, 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 pro-
cedure. 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 Co-
rinthians 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

284 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

speaks of all the appearances of Jesus after the
crucifixion as if they were of tlie same kind, that
they were all visions, like the manifestation to
himself? And, hnally, 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 an-
swered, I am afraid that, so far as I am concerned,
Paul's testimony cannot he seriously regarded, ex-
cept as it may afford evidence of the state of tradi-
tional 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 con-
temporaries and neighbours of the Jews, and, if
the most probable interpretation of the Apoca-
lypse can be 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.*

Thus, I conceive that I have shown cause for

* King Herod liad not the least difficulty in supposing
the resurrection of John the Baptist " John, whom I be-
headed, he is risen " (Mark vi. 16).

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 285

the opinion that Dr. AYace'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,* or not. As Dr.
"VYace 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 ofi^ered 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

* I am very sorry for the interpolated " in," because cita-
tion ou,2:ht 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."

286 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

first put together; of the extent to which they
have been subsequently worked over and inter-
polated; 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 bet-
ter than negation.

There is a widespread notion that the " primi-
tive 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 remal"kable character,
the final stage of which is far more different from
the first than x\nglicanism 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 2S7

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 begin-
ning and the end of the period are brightly
illuminated by the contemporary evidence of two
writers of whose historical existence there is no
doubt,* 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 tlie 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. t 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.

* 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.

f See Dial, cuu/, Tryphonp, % Al and ^ 35. It is to be
understood that Justin does not arrange these categories in
order, as I have done.

134

288 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER vni

3. Je^ys 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 con-
sider 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 be-
lieve in the natural birth of Jesus, of whom he im-
plies that there is a respectable minority, to be
heretics, though he himself strongly holds the pre-
ternatural birth of Jesus and his pre-existence as
the " Logos " or " Word." Lie conceives the Lo-
gos to be a second God, inferior to the first, un-
knowable God, with respect to whom Justin, like
Philo, is a complete agnostic. The Holy Spirit is
not regarded by Justin as a separate personality.

yiii AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 289

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 mil-
lennium.

The pillar of the Church in the middle of
the second century a much-travelled native of
Samaria was certainly well acquainted with
Eome, 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 cate-
gories above enumerated are arranged in a series

Justin''s Christianity

Orthodox J udceo- Christianity Idolnthytic

Judaism ^ ^^- -, Christiayiity Paaanism

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 pliilosophic or popular, on the
extreme riglit; 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 Chris-
tians; namely, those who insist on circumcision
and other observances of the Law on the part
of Gentile converts; that is to say, the strict
Juda?o-Christians (II.) J ^i^^? on the other hand,
those who assert the lawfulness of eating meat

290 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

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 etymo-
logically.

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 Protes-
tant sect within the pale of orthodoxy, to say noth-
ing of the Roman and Greek Churches, which
would hesitate to declare the practice of circum-
cision 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

Judceo-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 Judaso-
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 IL, III., IV., V. And the

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 291

wolf would play the same havoc now, if it could
only get its blood-stained jaws free from the muz-
zle 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 call-
ing him an ^' infidel," on the same and on other
grounds.

Now let us turn to our other authoritv. If
there is any result of critical investigations of the
sources of Christianity which is certain,* 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 ob-
served, 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 solitarv book in the Xew Testament of
the authorship and authority of which we have
such good evidence.

* T :nard mysolf ajjainst beincr supposed to affirm that
even the four cardinal epistles of Paul mav not have been
seriously tampered with. See note 1, p. 287 above.

292 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

And what is the state of things we find dis-
closed? A bitter quarrel, in his account of which
Paul by no means minces matters, or hesitates to
hurl defiant sarcasms against those who were " re-
puted 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; anft, 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

Mil AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 293

testified by James in a passage of the x\cts cited
further on. In the first Epistle to the Corin-
thians, 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 be done, for the sake of the weaker
brethren. On the other hand, the Nazarenes of
Jerusalem most strenuously opposed PauFs '^ gos-
pel," insisting on every convert becoming a regu-
lar Jewish proselyte, and consequently on his ob-
servance 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 prin-
ciple 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 Gen-
tiles; while James and Peter and John should deal
in their own fashion with Jewish converts. After-
wards, he complains bitterly of Peter, because,
when on a visit to Antioch, he, at first, inclined
to PauFs view and ate w^ith 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 dis-
sembled likewise with him; insomuch as even Bar-
nabas 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 settle-

294 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER vin

ment of which determined the fortunes of the
nascent religion. It is tliat the disciples at Jeru-
salem, headed by "^ James, the Lord's brother/"'
and by the leading apostles, Peter and John, were
strict Jews, who had objected to admit any con-
verts 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 al-
ready come in the joerson of Jesus of ISTazareth.

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 writers version of the confer-
ence 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 ns believe, the Jerusalem Chnrch held

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 295

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 Eomans, 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 for-
sake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children,
neither to walk after the customs. (Acts xxi. 20, 21.)

They therefore rec|uest that he should perform a
certain public religious act in the Temple, in or-
der 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).*

How far Paul could do what he is here re-
quested 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 Co-
rinthians, I may leave any candid reader of these
epistles to decide. The point to which I wish to

* fPaul, in fact, is required to commit in Jerusnlem. an
act of the same character as that which he brands as "dis-
simulation " on the part of Peter in Antioch.]

20G AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER, viii

direct attention is the declaration that the Jeru-
salem Church, led by the brother of Jesus and by
his i)ersonal 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 af-
fected 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 fol-
lowers were known as Xazarenes; while the con-
gregation of the disciples, and, later, of converts
at Jerusalem the Jerusalem Church was em-
phatically the " sect of the Nazarenes," no more,
in itself, to be regarded as anything outside Ju-
daism than the sect of the Sadducees, or that of
the Essenes.* In fact, the tenets of both the Sad-
ducees and the Essenes diverged much more widely
from the Pharisaic standard of orthodoxy than
N^azarenism did.

Let us consider the condition of affairs now
(a. d 50-60) in relation to that which obtained

* All this was quite clearly pointed out by Kitschl nearly
forty years ago. See Die Entstelmng der alt-katholischen
Kircht (1850), p. 108.

viii AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 297

in Justin's time, a century later. It is plain tliat
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 Paid,
simply allowed him to form his congregations of
non-legal Gentile converts at Antioch and else-
where; 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 indiffer-
ence 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 ex-
treme left just before the middle of the first

ii
((

298 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDEll viii

century, when the " sect of the Nazarenes " consti-
tuted 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 he-
retical 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 mis-
understood; 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 299

mucli as to baptize Cornelms; 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, be-
cause they were hard of heart and dull of com-
prehension. This hypothesis is hardly in accord-
ance with the concomitant faith of those who
adopt it, in the miraculous insight and superhu-
man 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 theo-
sophic romance of the first order it could have
been written by none but a man of remarkable
literary capacity, who had drunk deep of Alex-
andrian philosophy. Moreover, the doctrine of
the writer of the fourth gospel is more remote

300 AGNOSTICISM: A EEJOINDER viii

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 meta-
morphosis of both doctrine and style by the time
he reached the ripe age of ninety or so, and pro-
vided 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 " Chris-
tians " in the sense in which that term has been
understood ever since its asserted origin at An-
tioch, but Jews strict orthodox Jews whose be-
lief 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.*

* " If every one was baptized as soon as he aelcnowleflped
Jesns to be the Messiah, the first Christians can have been
aware of no other essential differences from the Jews." Zel-
ler, Vortrage (1865), p. 26.

Yin AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 301

Tlie open proclamation of their special view about
the Messiah was doubtless offensive to the Phari-
sees, just as rampant Low Churchism is offensive
to bigoted High Churchism in our own coun-
try; or as any kind of dissent is offensive to fer-
vid religionists of all creeds. To the SadcUicees,
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 Ju-
das, a generation earlier. Galilee was always a
hotbed of seditious enthusiasm against the rule of
Eome; and high priest and procurator alike had
need to keep a sharp eye upon natives of that
district. On the whole, however, the jSTazarenes
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 Ju-
daism, was awakened by Paul. From their point
of view, he was a mere renegade Jew, opposed
alike to orthodox Judaism and to ortliodox Xaza-
renism; and whose teachings threatened Judaism
with destruction. And, from their point of view,
they were quite right. In the course of a cen-
tury, Pauline influences had a large share in driv-
ing primitive ISTazarenism from being the very
heart of the new faith into the position of scouted
error; and the spirit of Paul's doctrine continued

302 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

its work of driving Christianity fartlier and far-
ther 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 imiversal
religion which was not heard of till twenty years
after his death? * 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 dis-
regarded the subtleties of the bigots for legal ob-
servance, and appealed rather to those noble con-
ceptions 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

* Dr. Harnaek, in the lately-published second edition of
his Dogmengeschtchte, says (p. 39), " Jesus Christ brou^-ht
forward no new doctrine ; " and again (p. 65), " It is not
diificult 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.

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 303

Judaism. Again, who is to say whether Jesiis
proclaimed himself the veritable Messiah, expected
by his nation since the appearance of the pseudo-
prophetic 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
w^as 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 re-
sponsible for that which the mere effluxion of time
has demonstrated to be a prodigious error.

AVhen 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. 3Go).

Far be it from me to set myself up as a judge

304 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

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 cere
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. AVace, 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 305

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 lirst 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 bv

306 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

omissions, what there is of it is often verbally
identical with the corresponding passages in the
otlier 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 differ-
ent 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 be 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 evan-
gelists? 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

VIII AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER 307

compare tliem carefully. It will then be seen that
the coincidences between them, not merely in sub-
stance, but in arrangement, and in the use of iden-
tical words in the same order, are such, that only
two alternatives are conceivable: either one evan-
gelist 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 wit-
nesses. 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, j\Iark, 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 par-
ticular miracle occurred, since it is demonstrable,
either that all depend on some antecedent state-
ment, of the authorship of which nothing is
known, or that two are dependent upon the third?

Dr. AVace 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 de-
clared that the theory of the nature of the spiritual
world involved in the story is true. Xow I hold
that this theory is false, that it is a monstrous and
mischievous fiction; and I unhesitatingly express

308 AGNOSTICISM: A REJOINDER viii

my disbelief in any assertion that it is truc^, 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
Avould be simply silly to adopt, I certainly shall re-
joice 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 tradi-
tion 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 prophec}^ yet I think I may venture to ex-
press the anticipation, that if '^ Christians " gen-
erally are going to follow the line taken by Dr.
Wace, it will not be long before all men of com-
mon sense qualify for a place among the " in-
fidels."

IX
AGXOSTICISM AXD CHRISTIANITY

[1889]

Nemo ergo ex rae scire quasrat, quod me nescire scio, nisi
fort,e ut nescire discat. Augustinus, De Civ. Dei, xii. 7.

* 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 de-
nomination. To this wholly erroneous imputa-
tion, 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,

* The substance of a paragraph which precedes this has
been transferred to the Prologue.

309

310 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

speaking for myself, and without impugning the
right of an}^ 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 xAgnosticism.
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 repro-
bation ought to attach to the profession of
disbelief in such inadequately supported pro-
positions. 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

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 311

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 tlie 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 1
have ventured to urge is that they must not ex-
pect 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 " unknow-
able." * \Yhat 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 vrords play the part of realities

* I confess that, long ai^o, I once or twice made this mis-
take ; even to the waste of a capital ' U.' 1893.

312 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

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 get-
ting on for twenty-five centuries, at least, since
mankind began seriously to give their minds to
these topics. Generation after generation, phi-
losophy 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 nundoer of those wdio 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 Ecclesias-
ticism. For Theology, the science, is one thing;
and Ecclesiastic] sm, the championship of a fore-
gone conclusion ''' as to the truth of a particular

* "Let ns maintain, before we have proved. This secm-
ins: paradox is the secret of happiness " (Dr. Newman :
Tract 85, p. 85).

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 313

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 demonstra-
tion 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 difl'er from those reached by the majority of
Agnostics.

But, as between x\gnosticism and Ecclesiasti-
cism, 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." *
He declares that he has prejudged certain con-
clusions, 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

* Dr. Newman, Essay on Development, p. 357.

314 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

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.
" I'aith," 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-righteous-
ness 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 intel-
lectual. It is desirable there should be an end of
any mistakes on this topic. If our clerical oppo-
nents were clearly aware of the real state of the
case, there would be an end of the curious delu-
sion, 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 m their hearts are, ashamed of them-
selves. It would be discourteous to do more than
hint the antipodal opposition of this pleasant
dream of Qieirs 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

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 315

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 Eome 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.

316 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

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 un-
derstanding, 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 teach-
ing 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
" Athaiiasian," 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

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 317

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 com-
pared 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 com-
petent, 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 " Eeserve " 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 ex-
position 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 necessarilv ^laterialists. Idealists, Atheists,

318 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

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 Ecciesiasticism 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 Kazareth, set forth by himself. Now this
supposed Summa of ISTazarene 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

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 319

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, there-
fore, 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 ex-
position 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 un-
known. If the pneumatological doctrine which
pervades the whole New Testament is nowhere
svstematicallv stated, it is everywhere assumed.

The writers of the Gospels and of the Acts take it
136

320 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

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 * 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 sub-
terranean 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 innimierable 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.

* It is hv no means to be asf^nmed that " spiritnal " and
"corporeal" are exact equivalents of "immaterial" and
" material " in the minrls of ancient speculators on these
topics. The " spiritual bodv" 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.

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 321

His residence is heaven, where he is snrrounded
by the ordered hosts of good spirits; his angels, or
messengers, and the executors of his will through-
out the universe.

On the other hand, the chief of the bad spirits
is Satan, the devil pai' 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 be-
nevolent intentions of the Supreme Being. In
fact, the souls and bodies of men form both the
theatre and the prize of an incessant warfare be-
tween 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 de-
mons 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 re-
versal of the Satanic work by putting an end to
both sin and death. He announces that the king-
dom 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

322 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

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 uncj[uenchable fire there
to endure continual torture, without a hope of
winning pardon from the merciful God, their Fa-
ther; or of moving the glorified Messiah to one
more act of pitiful intercession; or even of inter-
rupting, by a momentary sympathy with their
wretchedness, the harmonious psalmody of their
brother angels and men, eternally lapped in bliss
imspeakable.

The straitest Protestant, who refuses to admit
the existence of any source of Divine truth, ex-
cept 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 confes-
sions 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 ques-
tion whether God, or the devil, occupies a larger

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 323

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 * go so far as to challenge the pagans
to a sort of exorcising match, by way of test-
ing the truth of Christianity. Mediaeval Chris-
tianity 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. What-
ever 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 cen-
tury, the demonological hypotheses of the first cen-
tury are, explicitly or implicitly, held and occa-
sionally acted upon by the immense majority of
Christians of all confessions.

* Tertullian {Apolog. Adv. Gentes, cap. xxiii) thus chal-
lenges 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.

324 AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY ix

Only here and there has the progress of scien-
tific thought, outside the ecclesiastical world, so
far affected Christians, that they and their teach-
ers 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 alle-
gory. 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 ISTew Testament ask himself whether
Jesus and his immediate friends and disciples can

IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIAXITY 325

be dishonoured more grossly than by the supposi-
tion that they said and did that which is attrib-
uted to them; while, in reality, they disbelieved
in Satan and his demons, in possession and in
exorcism? *

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 permis-
sible 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 formulae and rites. Jesus is made to
say that the devil " was a murderer from the be-
ginning " (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 fa-
mous 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;

* See the expression of orthorlox opinion upon the " ac-
commodation " subterfuge already cited above, p. 217.

326 AGNOSTICISM AND CIIPJSTIANITY ix

for it would be difliciilt to name any other points
of doctrine on which the Nazarene does not differ
from the Christian, and tlie different historical
stages and contemporary subdivisions of