Its modes of thought are, in some of the most important respects, but continuations or developments of those of pre-Christian Israel. And the processes required for its criticism are perhaps best learned in the critical study of the Old Testament, which is in one aspect a narrower field, and less closely connected with the religious controversies of the present day. May I be pardoned by English critics of the New Testament, for suggesting that in their treatment of both form and contents of that literature, they have suffered slightly for having (as it would seem) neglected this wholesome discipline ?

Thus, then, there are two kinds of investigation, both of which, though in different degrees, call loudly for encouragement. The work has to be done, if there is to be a real continuity in the religious history of the nation, or more correctly if we are to have a religious history at all, and are not rather to drift on towards recrudescent superstition or a soulless and unscientific materialism. But the work will never be done adequately by practical clergymen, or by trainers of practical clergymen, because of the relation in which they stand to traditional opinion. The only hope of historical theology, which is as much as to say, of historical religion, is to commit the investigation of it to independent workers; and since this is a highly unremunerative pursuit, and an university is primarily the home of learning, to provide from the academical funds the material means for their work. I venture to ask for

this in the name at once of science and of religion, for it is the Bible in which I am mainly interested. The Bible stands at the centre of a group of studies, which cannot be ignored without injury to the completeness of our system. How much more might I add, could I trust myself to speak of its value as the link between churches and sects, nay, may I not add, between the Christian and other religions. And for how many other contradicting merits might not these Books, might not this one Book, be praised!

197

VIII.

THE NEEDS OF THE HISTORICAL SCIENCES.

By ARCHIBALD HENRY SAYCE, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Queen's

6

College, Oxford.

The epigram

THE proper study of mankind is man.' may be deficient in poetical merit, but at any rate it enunciates a truth which we are in some danger of forgetting at the present time. The marvellous progress and discoveries of physical science, the intellectual revolution it has accomplished, as well as the practical and utilitarian bearing of its results, have made us somewhat blind to the fact that, however important may be the science of the material universe, its end and apex ought to be the science of man. If the material is subordinate to the mental and spiritual-if the thinker and enquirer himself be the ultimate centre of all his thoughts and enquiries, then surely we should not fall back again into the old Oriental attitude of mind which saw in man only the slave and puppet of an almighty and overpowering nature. As the literature of Greece dissipated the darkness of mediæval superstition at the Renaissance, so even now it may be well for us to drink in anew the lesson of Greek art,

and learn that the divinity of the world about us is but the reflection of the soul of man.

The universities have hitherto considered that the subject-matter of their studies and the basis of their teaching ought to be emphatically the litera humaniores -the best thoughts of the best thinkers that the past has bequeathed to us. The learning of the middle ages was stored up in the tattered fragments of Greek and Latin writers; the light which broke in upon the Renaissance came from the revived study of the classical languages and literature; and it was therefore natural that the curriculum of the universities should be almost wholly founded on the literary remains of Greece and Rome. This traditional curriculum has indeed been expanded and modified in accordance with the needs of succeeding generations; but it has remained the central core of academic life and activity-the rock upon which the intellectual work of our universities has been built. Now, however, a rival has started up in the shape of physical science, which, long content with bare toleration from the 'old learning,' already claims not only equality but even undisputed sway. The advance of physical science has been the great achievement of our age, and its supreme importance lies not so much in the material benefits it has conferred as in the scientific habit of mind produced by it, and the application of the inductive and comparative method to all the manifold subjects of human investigation. For the first time in the history of the

intellect, truth and not pleasure has become the highest object to be aimed at. We want to know what really is and not what we wish to be, and to satisfy this want our processes of enquiry have to be exact and cautious, accepting nothing which cannot be proved and allowing nothing which cannot be verified.

If the universities are to maintain the position they have inherited, and carry on the work for which they were established, they must adapt themselves to the changed requirements of modern knowledge, and harmonise together the old and the new learning. Physical science is well able to take care of itself; its apostles are numerous and popular; and its claims are not only likely to be pressed with vigour but to be listened to with respect. It is the historical sciences, those which deal with man and his history, which are most in danger of being neglected. What with the jealous exclusiveness of the old classical scholarship on the one side, and the large and growing needs of physical science on the other, sciences like those of language, of ethnology, or we may even add of history, have a hard struggle to secure a recognition. And yet if a university be a place where the boundaries of knowledge are defined and extended, where ancient learning is studied and taught, and where a spirit of mental refinement-of humanity in short-is fostered and cultivated, there at any rate we ought to find abundant provision for those branches of study in which the culture of the past and the science of the present