curate; *for Berkeley became the most revered of bishops, and it will scarcely be maintained that all the "fops" who sneered at him were clergymen. The most irrevalent rejoinder, I think, was given him by the layman Johnson, and the most contemptuous "sneer" was passed by the physician Arbuthnot; while the unlucky missile which Mr. Farrar has caught up to fling at the clergyturns out to be a line which one clergyman addressed to another in honour of a third. But let us look at some facts which are rather more in point than this, and which lie close at hand. In Mr. Grove's inaugural address to the British Association at Nottingham, he recognised the growth of scientific societies "since the foundation of the Royal Society now more than two centuries ago," as "an important cause of the rapid advance of science." What light is thrown on the question before us by the origin of those two bodies, the Royal Society which commenced the movement, and the "British Association for the Advancement of Science," which represents its latest development? The lists of those who founded the Royal Society give honourable prominence to the names of clergymen ; witness those of Wilkins, Bishop of Chester; Ward, Bishop of Salisbury; Sprat, Bishop of Rochester (its first historian); Bathurst, Dean of Wells; and Dr. Wallis. The British Association was mainly originated by a clergyman, the Rev. W. Vernon Harcourt, who planned its "aims and working details," says Principal Forbes, "with a completeness which took his hearers somewhat by surprise, but in which they found little to alter or amend; and the constitution proposed by Mr. Harcourt remains in all its important details the working code of the Association to this day." "An institution," Mr. Forbes remarks, "founded by such men as Sir David Brewster and Mr. Vernon Harcourt, and fostered in its very origin by the enlightened patronage of the * For "Fops refuted Berkeley with a sneer," as Mr. Farrar, gives it, read " And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a grin." To misquote four words out of six is surely an unreasonable degree of carelessness. He leaves not a scrap of the original but a proper name and an article, The line is generally cited more accurately (except "with" for "by") but with a wrong reference to Pope; e. g. by Mr. J. S. Mill," Logic," ii. 471, ed. 1843 (reference afterwards withdrawn), and by Mr, G. H. Lewes, "History of Philosophy," iv. 7, ed. 1846; ii. 283, ed. 1867. It is taken from a piece often printed with Pope's Works, by John Brown, D.D., entitled" An Essay on Satire, ocasioned by the death of Mr. Pope, inscribed to Mr. Warburton; " and will be found in Anderson's "British Poets," x. 879. | then venerable and beloved Archbishop of York, must have had its rise in the confi dence that the prosecution of science in a right spirit must ultimately prove the bulwark, and not the countermine, of religious belief." For nine years out of the thirtysix of its existence, the Chair of the Association has been filled by clergymen, viz., by Dean Buckland, Professor Sedgwick, Dr. Lloyd, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, Dr. Whewell, Dean Peacock, Dr. Robinson, the younger Dr. Lloyd, and Professor Willis. Mr. Farrar will render no service to the Association if he helps to propagate the idea that this fair alliance has been broken, and that there is now a confessed antagonism between the clergy and that scientific body. No doubt there has been a great change since the days when, in spite of their dogmatisin, their commentatorial disposition, and the other obstructive tendencies which Dr. Whewell records against them,† "the whole domain of the human intellect," as Dean Milman says, "was the possession" of the clergy; when "the universities, the schools, were theirs and theirs only;" when "they were the canon lawyers, and for some centuries, as far as it was known or in use, the teachers and professors of the civil law;" when "they were the historians, the poets, the philosophers." Other classes have emerged, one after another, to claim a share in governing that intellectual empire over which the clergy ruled so long with mixed results of good and evil. Lawyers and physicians, astromoners and chemists, engineers and soldiers, have all come forward on the basis of their several professions to make portions of that mighty realm their own. But it is unreasonable to talk as if the great body of the clergy erence to its history, plan, and results,' &c. Dundee, 1866, pp. 7, 19. "The British Association considered with ref "History of the Sciences," and "Philosophy of Discovery," p. 45, &c. For a full statement of the case against the clergy, we may turn to the works of Mr. Lecky and the late Mr. Buckle; and. to some chapters in Mr. G. H. Lewes's "History of Philosophy." "History of Latin Christianity," ix. 3, ed. 1864. "The theological spirit is, in a manner, the blood. which ran in the veins of the European world, down to Bacon and Descartes. For the first time, Bacon in England, and Descartes in France, carried intelligence beyond the path of theology. Upon the whole, this influence has been salutary." Guizot, "Civilization in Europe," i. 114, ed. Bohn. Professor Sedgwick is fond of repeating the words in which La Place, shortly before his death, dwelt on the value of the clerical element in the universities of England; “ Discourse on Cambridge Studies," 5th ed., pp. cccliii., 129. or had passed from comparative light to dark- lacked its just proportion of those more forness, while the rest of the world has been tunate discoverers, whose discretion emerging from darkness into light. The calmness has preserved them from being names of the clergy are prominent at every ranked in either class. great crisis in the movement of thought; and whatever may have been the case with many in the rank and file of so vast an array, their leaders have seldom failed to grasp at last the torch of truth, and pass it onward with unfaltering hand. Let us mark down, for instance, the names of churchmen as they come before us in the history of the scientific revolution which lies parallel to the Reformation. As far back as the twelfth century, the great mystical theologian, Richard of St. Victor, The stock instances of clerical persecu- described the true method of physical intion prove the folly of committing the inter- quiry in terms which "Francis Bacon himests of science to a needless assault on a self might have adopted." "It would not great, powerful, and venerable system. be easy at the present day," says Dr. WheBut they often bear witness also to more well, "to give a better account of the obpatience than we should expect on the side ject of physical science." Raymond Lully of the persecutors, and more indiscretion became a Franciscan missionary. Roger than is acknowledged on the side of the as- Bacon has all but lost his title of Doctor sailant. In the eighth century, the Irish- mirabilis under the designation of Francisman Virgilius was accused at Rome by St. can friar. Cusanus was a cardinal. TeleBoniface for the heresy of asserting the ex- sius is said to have refused an archbishopistence of the antipodes; yet he obtained ric. † Campanella was a Dominican; and and kept till his death the bishopric of so was the ill-starred Giordano Bruno. Salzburg, and afterwards was sainted. Copernicus passed over from medicine to In the tenth century, the famous Gerbert was suspected of glamour and necromancy; but he rose through the archbishoprics of Rheims and Ravenna to St. Peter's Chair. † Roger Bacon, though a Churchman, might have escaped persecution if he had not "in an evil hour "taken "the fatal step of becoming a Franciscan friar," and so brought himself within the reach of a 66 the Church, and spent much of his life as a cathedral canon. It is the same in every branch of intellectual movement. Churchmen are ever foremost in the ranks, some originating reforms, and others protecting and assisting their promoters; and some, it must be confessed, like other people, inviting persecution by their want of judgment, narrower, or disturbing progress by their vanity and more rigid, more suspicious rule." Gali- vacillation. The most conspicuous of our leo, the layman, was himself partly to blame (early) English geometers was Thomas for the persecution which the churchman, Bradwin, Archbishop of Canterbury,' + Copernicus, had avoided. "Under the Laurentius Valla was a canon of St John sagacious and peaceful sway of Copernicus, Lateran. Erasmus is called "The glory of astronomy had effected a glorious triumph the priesthood and the shame." The fickle over the dogmas of the Church; but under De Dominis was first a Romish archbishop the bold and uncompromising sceptre of and afterwards an English dean. MaurolyGalileo all her conquests were irrecovera- cus and Mariotte were abbots. Malebly lost."§ So far as persecution goes, the branche was an Oratorian. In Dr. WheChurch has contributed its full share of vic- well's short list of leading names from Lord tims as well as persecutors; nor has it Bacon to Newton, I observe two doctors of divinity Gassendi and Isaac Barrow the latter one of the glories of Mr. Farrar's own college. Another great Master of Trinity, Richard Bentley, "claims the undoubted merit," says Bishop Monk," of having in his Boyle Lecture Sermons been the It has lately been argued that the error really charged against Virgilius was rather that of maintaining a non-adamite race of men than that of the antipodes. See "Christian Schools and Scholars," 1867, i. 141-3. tCompare Dr. Newman, "Scope and Nature of University Education," p. 323. Lectures and Essays on University Subjects," pp. 243, 250. 155. Milman, "History of Latin Christianity," ix. Brewster," Martyrs of Science," p. 96. Dr. Whewell remarks on the series of misfortunes which assailed the reformers of philosophy," from R. Bacon to Bruno; but he adds," the most unfortunate were, for the most part, the least temperate and judicious reformers." "Philosophy of Discov. ery," pp. 101-2. "Philosophy of Discovery," pp. 52, 53. † Brucker, "Hist Crit. Philos," iv. 451. There is some difficulty about the chronology. But the assertion, which comes from Thuanus, proves the belief in his influence with the reigning pontiff. Hallam. "Literature of Europe," i. 112. (But more for his rank, he adds, which, by the way, was very short-lived, and for his theological writings, than for his geometrical speculations.) first to display the discoveries of Newton in a popular form." I need not continue the series to our own times, when it is scarcely necessary to remark that some of the clergy have taken a lead in free thought which has scandalized many others besides their brethren. The list could be enlarged indefinitely if we entered on the details of scientific researches which have been pursued in the cloisters of colleges and the seclusion of country parsonages. As naturalists, for instance, the clergy have frequently madegreat parts of the subject their own. I have appealed to no names but such as are patent to every one. They are more than enough, however, to substantiate the "denial" which Mr Farrar " challenges;" and to leave him in the position of having cast an undeserved reproach on the order to which he has the honour to belong. But what are we to say of the residuum of fact on which it was admitted that the charge was founded? The truth is I belive, that polemical antipathy was only one of three great obstacles by which the reformation of science was obstructed, the other two being political suspicion, and the jealousy of scientific men. One of these hindrances is now happily extinct; political suspicion seldom trespasses on scientific ground. A second, we may trust, is considerably modified; scientific jealousies do not often now take a worse form than that of controversy on priority in discoveries. And I am bold to maintain that the polemical spirit has undergone a proportionate improvement throughout the really representative ranks of the clergy. If it still lingers among the lower ranges, it is mainly, I must add, because scientific men are so careless in provoking it; and it is fully shared by many laymen, who are quite as ready to ; * One naturally thinks of Gilbert White and Bishop Stanley. The following clerical names occur to me as bearing more or less directly on the question. Naturalists, Mr. J. G. Wood, Mr. R. T. Lowe, Mr. S. C. Malan, Mr. F. O. Morris, Mr. H. B. Tristram in botany, especially, Mr. Churchill Babington, Mr. M. J. Berkeley, the late Professor Henslow, Mr. C. A. Johns; in astronomy, Professor Challis and Mr. Prichard; in geology, the American, Dr. Hitch cock, and Mr. C. F. Watkins, not to repeat some older names, which are among the greatest on the geological roll; in entomology, Kirby, and the late Mr. F. W. Hope; in agriculture, Mr. Huxtable; in political economy, Malthus and Professor Rogers. The evidence of Dr. Hooker before the Public Schools Commission (in. 382) gives an interesting account of the way in which Professor Henslow in troduced the study of botany into the village school of his parish in Suffolk. Their ignorance of natural history was the very first count in Mr. Farrar's indictment against the clergy. I should have thought that no men who have so little professional connexion with the subject had done so much as the clergy to promote that pursuit. pile the faggots of persecution as the most benighted of the clergy. People who do not judge from the last crude sermon which they happened to hear of, but who wish to ascertain what the clergy are really saying in sermons of a higher order, or in lectures, in pamphlets, at church congresses, and in the correspondence or reviews of such a paper as the Guardian, will be disposed to think that they are in far greater danger at present of giving way to an excessive anxiety for the establishment of peace on almost any terms between Revelation and Science. The Duke of Argyll has remarked on this in a tone of sarcasm; though I observe that he commends scientific men for the very same desire," to keep separate the language of science from the language of theology."* At the foot of the page I mention some specimens out of a large collection.t Almost to a man, the writers are eager to deny the necessity of a collision between revelation and science. The point is insisted on still more zealously in treatises on special subjects, as in the views of creation which have been but forth by Mr. Huxtable, Professor Challis, Dr. Rorison, Mr. Quarry, and the annoymous" Essex Rector." But I will close this part of the argument by quoting two clerical writers, whom all would confess to be the last men in the kingdom to understate the claims of Revelation. "It is evident," says Archbishop Manning, * "Reign of Law," pp. 55, 89. † Archdeacon Pratt, "Scripture and Science not at variance," 4th ed. 1861. Archdeacon Freeman, "The Harmony of Scripture and Science," Exeter, 1861. Bishop of London, Harmony of Revelation and the Sciences," Edinburgh, 1864. Rev. E. P. Eddrup, "Scripture and Science," Salisbury, 1865. Dr. Pusey," The Miracles of Prayer," Oxford, 1866. Dr. Payne Smith, "Doth God take care for oxen?" Oxford, 1866. Rev. R. B. Kennard, "The Unity of the Material and Spiritual Worlds," Oxford, 1866. Dr. Temple, "The present Relations of Science to Religion," preached at the British Association, 1860. Hon. and Rev. W. H. Lyttelton, "Holy Scripture the witness to the Revelation of God in all facts," preached at the British Association, 1865. Rev. D. Moore, "The Unsearchableness of God," preached at the British Association, 1866. Rev. C. Pritchard, "The Continuity of the Schemes of Nature and of Revelation," preached at the British Association, 1866. Rev. H. P. Liddon, "Fatalism and the Living God," Salisbury, 1866. Bishop of St. David's, "The present State of Relations between Science and Literature," 1867. Dr. Hawkins "The Pestilence in its relation to Divine Providence and Prayer," Oxford, 1867. I may refer also to Dr. Newman's "Lectures and Essays on University Subjects," and on "The Scope and Nature of University Education;" to Mr. Maurice on "The Claims of the Bible and of Science;" to the debate at the Norwich Congress on "The spirit in which the Researches of Learning and Science should be applied to the study of the Bible;" and to some of the Essays in " The Church and the World." maintained by the last two writers, it provoked the opposition of Goodwin and of Kenrick, and has probably roused the suspicion of a good many others who had not apprehended its precise force and meaning. In the sense in which it was really intended, the precept is as just as it is simple. The hesitation which has been shown in receiving it seems to have sprung from a confusion between two entirely different positions. To affirm, with the above authorities, that Scripture stands apart from "that Holy Scripture does not contain a revelation of what are called physical sciences; and that when they are spoken of, the language is that of sense, not of science, and of popular, not of technical usage." "The mistake" in Galileo's case, writes Dr. Pusey," was not in the language of the Bible, but that men argued from language adapted (as language relating to visible phenomena must be) to the phenomena whereof it speaks, as though it necessarily contained scientific truth. The claims of geology do not even touch upon theology." all scientific theories, is incompatible with But these personal considerations have detained us long enough. I shall certainly not deny that the clergy are widely influenced by the soldierly feeling that they are bound to defend a position in which they believe that God has placed them, and which men of science seem too eager to assail. But, after all, the more important question is, not what the less or more distinguished representatives of the clergy really do say, but what their position logically binds them to say. Mr. Farrar is good enough to grant that the inmost heart" of the English Church is "intensely truthful." Have the sons of the English Church no power to formulate their opinions, with clear intellects, as well as an intensely truthful" heart? It will be convenient to discuss this question under the two aspects of the text of Scripture . and the doctrines of revealed religion. the attempt to explain its language in the service of a theory, or to change the explanation with a view to the support of fresh opinions. It is one thing to say that Scripture confines itself to the use of ordinary language, which is not concerned with science at all, except so far as it is coloured on the surface by the prevalent belief. It is exactly the opposite thing to catch at every fancied coincidence between Scripture and recent discoveries, as though the simple words of the Bible were laden with recondite anticipations of science, which can be extracted by the help of fresh and questionable translations. "There appear to me two opposite dangers," says Dr. Pusey, "of which we believers have to beware in regard to any science which touches upon the contents of Holy Scripture; firstly, 1. It is one of the oldest of canons on an uncautious adoption of any such discoveries as may seem to coincide with Holy Scripture; the interpretation of Scripture that we are or secondly, a misplaced fear that any legitinot to cling to a meaning which was pre-mate results to which any science may come viously drawn from the letter, if the prog- shall be adverse to Holy Scripture. In the one ress of science has shown it to be erroneous. case we seem, as it were, to be underpinning The reason is clear; because the scientific our foundations and substituting sand for the belief of an age must colour its language, rock; in the other we give an impression that rand because every single book of Scripture we are ill at ease whether our foundations be is expressed in the language of its age: the sacred text to conform it to some imagined solid. . . We must beware either of bending When science advances, the old terms must result of history or physical science, or, on the be translated; and to translate one set of other hand, of insisting upon our interpretation scientific symbols into another is no more of it, as if, in such matters, it must certainly be taking liberties with Scripture or dealing the true one. It was wise advice of St. unfairly with its readers than to make a Augustine: Since Moses is not here to tell us version in a modern language. Laid down what he meant, we should be modest in proexplicitly and repeatedly by Augustine, by nouncing certainly that he meant this and did Aquinas, by Bellarmine, the principle has not mean that."". Report of Norwich Conbeen re-stated under the high authority of gress, pp. 181-2. Pascal, of Buckland, and of Whewell. As Manning, "Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost," p. 165; Pusey, "On Daniel," p. xvii. St. Augustine, "Confess.," xii., passim; "De Gen. ad Lit.," i. 37, 39; " Enchiridion," c. 15, &c. (Opp., i. 220, iii. 129, 130, vi. 218); St. Thom. Aquin., "Summa," pars. I., Qu. Ixviii. 1, quoting St. Augustine; Pascal, "Provincial Letters," p. 392. sqq., ed. Pearce, quoting both St. Augustine and Aquínas (in fact it is remarked that St. Augustine's words "are cited in the same manner in every encyclopædical | This address of Dr. Pusey's gives sufficient instances of cases in which old and work of the middle ages;" Whewell, "Philosophy of Discovery," p. 56, from Digby); Whewell, quoting Bellarmine, "History of Scientific Ideas," ii. 308; Goodwin, quoting Buckland, "Essays and Reviews," p. 231; Kenrick, "Essay on Primæval History," p. xvii. Compare Dr. Newman," Lectures and Essays on University Subjects," pp. 237, 242, sqq. once familiar interpretations have been, or may yet be, abandoned, propounded by an authority which on such points is beyond appeal. According to Dr. Pusey, then, it is not of faith to maintain that the world was made only 6,000 years ago; nor, indeed, were the old interpreters unanimous in maintaining so recent an age. It is not of faith to reject the solution by which Hugh Miller explained the Mosaic cosmogony, "that God spread before the mind of Moses pictures of His creative operation out of time." It is not of faith to demand a higher rise or wider overflow for the waters of the Deluge than "that all the high hills in man's then world," which might fall very far short of "the highest in the known world," "were covered fifteen cubits, so that none could escape save those who chose God's way of deliverance." It is not of faith that the genealogies from Adam to Abraham were meant "as exact measures of man's existence on the earth." "Prima facie," he adds, "one should receive everything as it seems to stand;" but "the question having been raised, we ought to make clear to ourselves what is of faith, and what is not, lest those who are persuaded as to a different theory should injure themselves or others, by setting Scripture in opposition to the supposed results of science, when it is not. The truth of Holy Scripture is in no way concerned with these theories." It is true that there remains some scientific topics, such as the unity of mankind, which are really connected with Christian doctrines. But the descent of all men from a common ancestor is precisely one of those points on which the position of revelation is supported by an influential body of scientific men; and I believe it will be found that questions which are mixed up with matters of faith belong, for the most part, to the class of subjects on which science has established no right to tie us down to one conclusion rather than another. have been disputes between theologians and men of science which the above distinctions seem inadequate to deal with. Must we admit that here at last the strife is internecine? Or must we say that now at all events the clergy are altogether in the wrong? Far otherwise. We certainly think the controversy needless; but we believe that the blame does not rest in this case with the interpreters of Scripture. So far as the difference goes beneath the surface, the chief blame rests with unprovoked aggressors, who have claimed the right of dictating within a province not their own on grounds which their success in science does not warrant. No mistake that was ever justly charged upon the clergy can be greater than that which is made by men of science when they confound the provinces of observation and speculation, and claim the same authority in the latter as in the former. In the common use of the words, science is quite distinct from philosophy. We readily assent to the reports of scientific men, when they are agreed on their conclusions, throughout the whole range of material sequences. They are masters of a machinery by which they can reduce to order a vast mass of phenomena under certain grand and simple laws. But the case is altered if they proceed to theorise on the great problems of that spiritual world which lies everywhere beside and beyond the processes of nature, enfolding the whole realm of matter in a network of mystery to which no scientific method holds the key. We listen willingly to the physiologist when he gives us an analysis of the machinery of our bodies; when he traces out all "the ropes and pulleys" by which motion is conveyed from nerve to nerve, from limb to limb, from the resolution of the brain to the action of the hand. But it is quite another thing if he declares that his analysis exhausts the subject; that mind is nothing but nerve force, and mental movements, nothing but the rapid coursings 2. With this explanation, the solutions of nerve currents; that, in short, our nasuggested by St. Augustine's rule seem ture cannot be proved to contain any spiritperfectly clear and intelligible. It is diffi- ual element which is distinct from the macult to conceive a canon which admits of a terial, and subject to entirely different laws. more distinct exposition and a more ready These negative conclusions do not rest on application. But we are met by fresh ques- observation, but on the speculations of the tions when we pass from the form of Scrip- sense-philosophy; which in this case ignores ture to its substance; from mere turns of the higher facts of mental observations, language and isolated phrases, bearing only and builds itself only on the lower series. on collateral topics, to the spiritual revela- It is open to any one who pleases to argue tion which the sacred writers were com- in their favour; but he must do so with the missioned to convey. On these fields there understanding that he is deserting observa |