Cause of Failure as to Art and Science. 27 would lead to more disinterested conduct "-sets at nought all experience, takes away encouragement from the good and restraint from the bad. We have not exhausted the argument: we possess historical proof that virtue, or pure morality, has not been able to maintain itself in the earth, or to thrive by the light of Nature alone. Our duty may be seen by that light, and be proved by reason, but additional sanctions are required for the enforcement. The men of to-day are not the only ones who have talked of regenerating the world by means of the arts and intellectual lights; but from first to last, when apart from religious purity, the vaunted culture has ended in degeneration. History shows that men drag down Christianity; how, then, can the origin and continuance of it be accounted for without extra-mundane means? Genesis iv. 19-22 affords a striking illustration of the relative nothingness of Arts. In Lamech's family are represented three great grades of civilisation-agricultural, mercantile, sensual; and Lamech, a murderer, is the first recorded polygamist. Did that ancient civilisation emancipate the world, or enslave it? Did the strife maintained by those mechanical, sensual Cainites against the Sethites lead to a moral and spiritual victory? What was the result? The Cainites found themselves under the water with their organs, their implements, and their beauty; but the Ark, which they had ridiculed as an ungainly and retrograde structure, rode in peace over their heads. There were centuries in which the Sophists ran their career; when Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, taught at Athens; when the school of Alexandria was founded and Euclid wrote his "Elements;" when Archimedes propounded theories and principles in mechanics and hydrostatics; when Pythagoras experimented on harmonic intervals, Hipparchus and Ptolemy studied the stars; and anatomy began to be investigated as the basis of scientific medicine: did they win the world from misery, regenerate one heart, or save one soul? When the science of ancient Greece had cleared the world of fantastic. images of false divinities, the scientific method was well-nigh completed by the union of induction and experiment, was this science the salt of the earth? Did the scientific intellect go on and possess the universal mind? The impact of atoms being accounted the all-sufficient cause of things, were men satisfied with the operation? The whole world answers"No." From the minds of philosophers was dissipated every thought of a deflection of the universe by the gods," but neither sage nor simple was content. Literature, arts, refinement, luxury, gave much outward fineness, softness, finish, to manners; the old poets, orators, sculptors, painters, philosophers, were a wonder; but Juvenal and Persius among the Latins, Lucian amongst the Greeks, and St. Paul of the Hebrews, testify that society was a sink of sensuality. Why? Because art and science were divorced from ethical and religious purity. Philosophi sine Deo non sunt periti, sed perituri. The ethics of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Cicero, are in some respects admirable; but they had no authority from Divinity, and failed. The ablest people of whom history bears record is unquestionably the ancient Greek. "The average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own-that is, about as much as our race is above the African negro." 1 This race did not go on to possess the world. Though highest in products of the understanding, fairest of all men in form, cleverest in art, they speedily became servile and sensual, intolerant and fierce. Like the Romans, they fell into moral putrefaction which slew them. When godless Science has done the utmost, and irreligious Art has put her finest finish on work, only Frankenstein's monster is produced which slays them both. Art and Science are good, as the handmaids. and adorners of morality, as lighteners of labour, as smoothers of Nature's asperity; but, when put instead of Religion and of God, they and their worshippers perish like children of Cain. The gutter-child, by intellectual drill, may be converted into "the subtlest of all the beasts of the field ;" but we know the original of that description. History, human experience, Scripture, alike testify-"Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Prov. xxix. 18). "It is impossible to show by what Galton's "Hereditary Genius." General Incapacity of Doubters. 29 practical measures religious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, can be kept up without use of the Bible;" while experience proves that the purest morality and noblest life are formed by its precepts and examples. "The inability of laws to attain even the imperfect end at which they aim, is proved by the fact that in all ages and in every condition of society, an authority superior to their own has been called in to sanction and maintain them. Religion is that authority."1 Social and moral direction is a far more important object than scientific inquiry; being that, indeed, which elevates and gives best use to inquiry. The most violent opponents allow that a life guided by the rule of Christ's morality, and governed by Christ's authority, is the noblest of which we are capable. Even the lowest ranks of society find that by Christ's rule they are enabled to perform the highest actions of virtue. There are, nevertheless, among the opponents of Scripture, some high-minded, honest men. The laureate lauds them too much "There lives more faith in honest doubt, We only believe him so far as John Newton was wont to say-"Some men's doubts are better than other men's certainties." The character of other doubters whose heart, not head, is at fault, has been quaintly sketched by an old writerSinners perched on the dunghill of their vices, clapping their wings in self-applause, and fancying themselves much grander creatures than the Christian; who all the while is soaring on high like the lark, and mounting on his way to heaven." There are dishonest sceptics, professing to be wise, whom Tennyson well describes ""Law is God,' say some: 'No God at all,' says the fool; 'For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool.'" To all such, these are our only words "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all." Longfellow. "The Great Problem: can it be Solved?" Rev. G. R. Gleig, Edinburgh Magazine, January, 1875. Amongst the higher and more honest infidels, some of scientific power have little imagination and small spirituality, fail in reverent heed of Scripture, and consequently are not whole or comprehensive men. They amass, sometimes systematise facts, and unsparingly devote the best years of their life to one minute section of physical science. As a matter of course, their mechanical process fails when applied to ideas; and their partial apprehension of general truth, and the attempt to formulate Nature as wholly material and external, narrow their minds. Good in technicalities, but incapable of wide range, they are specially unfit for the elevated themes of theology, which are in the widest sense universal. From the habit of contemplating phenomena in which uniformity of antecedents and consequents obtains, they cannot refrain from the assumption that nothing was, is, or can be, at variance with their constant but limited experience. They explain the external structure of the world indeed, but according to the technic of man, taking no account of the spiritual and internal. The mechanism is all, the Maker is nothing in their theory; nevertheless, their own doctrine of continuity proves that the visible is the actualisation of the invisible, and the natural a passing of the supernatural into history. Schelling too pantheistically expresses it-" Nature is visible mind, and mind is invisible nature." Put it more correctly and scientifically" the phenomenal universe is the manifestation of a Divine Power that cannot be identified with the vitality of phenomena." Professor Tyndall infers that Aristotle, praised as a physicist, was wholly unphysical; and says of Goethe-" He could not formulate distinct mechanical conceptions; he could not see the force of mechanical reasoning; and in regions where such reasoning reigns supreme, he became a mere ignis fatuus to those who followed him." It may be said with equal fairness, that scientific men, in pursuit of the merely mechanical, neglect their best and greatest work, the establishment of intelligent enduring alliance between Religion and Science; the showing that they wage battle for one and the same cause -the cause of truth, of goodness, of beauty, of God. Like 1 "Address before the British Association at Belfast, 1874." Errors of Materialists. 31 Lucretius of old, they affirm-" Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself," when nothing of the kind is seen, for the energy that works cannot be identified with the phenomena. They pretend to find in the chance clash of atoms the secret of the world's plan from origination to completion; or, with greater absurdity, own God to be the cause of all things, but assert that He is the explanation of nothing: "Dieu est la cause de tout, mais il n'est l'explication de rien."1 They profess that inorganic matter, unaided by God, contains the promise and potency of all life; yet of this life, concerning which is such positive affirmation, they know little or nothing. "it is the continuous equilibration of the organism with its environment," that is, the art or power of living! They so express the law of conservation of energy as to bind the world in chains of fate, leave no place for God, no liberty for man, no soul for eternity; and, strangely enough, count this conservation of energy in the things that are a sort of means by which those that are not begin to exist. They claim regard as clear-witted men, who live in "the high and dry light of intellect," yet wholly forget, for any pious purpose, that every meal we eat and every cup we drink, illustrate the mysterious control of mind over matter, and of higher law subordinating lower. They know that, even as to geometrical truths, more is required than axioms and definitions-there must be intuition of the figures, and knowledge besides that of experience; yet, not being able to see the Unknown by introspection of what they know, they would deprive others of all that knowledge which grows out of spiritual experience. In the Secular School, human morality is identified with brute selfishness, and conscience is declared to be "a hoarded fund of traditionary pressure of utility." Shall we waste our time with these men, and try every possible way of going wrong? Life is too short. Religion satisfies a moral and spiritual yearning, which cannot be otherwise appeased. Intellect and Piety unite in worship of the Great Supreme, whom to know is eternal life. Brothers come with us, and escape the horrors of Richter's dream. He passed through unknown shadows, darkling around an empty altar. On the 1 M. Scherer. |