compulsory service. This unqualified explanation is the resource only of the sluggard and bigot. It saves the necessity of further inquiry; it gratifies the malign passion which hates an opposite and disturbing opinion; and it ministers pleasantly to the self-righteous gratification of feeling that we alone are the lovers of truth, the candid, honest, ingenuous thinkers and reasoners, from whom only the totally ignorant or the cunningly wicked dissent. We frankly declare, that we view the introduction into controversy with skeptics, of the fact of human depravity, in so unguarded a manner, and with so stern and unsympathetic a spirit, with a constantly increasing dislike. It has been so common as to be branded with the scurrilous, but possibly too deserved epithet, of "the clergyman's argument." It is a short hand, sanctimonious method of dealing with an opponent, sure not to be satisfactory to him, and that ought not to be so to ourselves. We object to it because, in the extent and absoluteness of its application, it is untrue, insufficient, and odious.

It is untrue if made to include all cases of skepticism. It has an undoubted bearing in many instances, which however were better left to God to judge. But it does not always apply; for there is such a thing, we fully and even gladly believe, as skepticism in which a man does not, and for the time being cannot, see his way clear to a well-grounded Christian faith. This is not the place to enter into a discussion of the matter, and we only mention it to indicate our view of the injustice of representing skepticism as always a cover for opposition to truth and right. In saying this, however, we do not mean to call in question either the doctrine of human depravity, or the allegation of its influence upon the religious opinions of men. In a vast number of cases skepticism is little more than the result of a desire to rid the mind of the obligations imposed by evangelical religion; which desire leads to an eager reception of skeptical objections, and an unwilling and uncandid attention to the arguments in behalf of Christianity. Dr. Nelson is doubtless correct in his admirably practical work, the "Cause and Cure of Infidelity," in attributing it largely to the fact declared by our Saviour, that "men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil," (compare also John v, 44, and viii, 43–47,) and the illustrations which he adduces are quite to the point. The common,

coarse, scoffing infidelity is of this stamp, as is also much that is more decent and refined. But this does not hinder many exceptions; at least many cases where the man is not conscious of such an influence, but falls into doubt, much to his own perplexity and grief, from a variety of causes, such as a peculiar cast of mind, an unfortunate education, companionship with unbelievers, observation of very imperfect representatives of religion, argument with weak and disingenuous advocates of the Gospel, and other causes, some of which we shall soon be called to notice. The source of responsibility and the ground of hope for such is indicated in the declaration or promise of the Saviour: "If any man will do His (the Father's) will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." Let any man, whatever his doubts at the first, seek för light in an obedient state of mind, honestly studying the life and discourses of Christ, and he will be divinely led to the knowledge of the truth.

But even if the allegation objected to were correct, it helps us forward little or nothing; for it still remains to be shown how an unregenerate heart can find the material of assault, and can so skillfully and powerfully employ it as to carry the convictions of men in the name of scientific truth, and thus virtually in the name of God himself. Mere depravity will explain why men should wish and aim to accomplish a certain result; but it does not enlighten us as to the method or the opportunity. How comes it that science is so universal a weapon in the hands of skeptics, and can be made so easily to serve their purpose? If there be mere pretense and hatred of the truth under their unbelief, they yet profess to base their skepticism on the reliable inductions of science, and the public, who are to adjudicate between them and us, will not admit an explanation from mere depravity till we have proved the insufficiency of any other. And then its odiousness in an argument is beyond description; for on that arena the antagonists are on an equal footing, and must conquer by logic and not by personal imputation. We know not which is the more coolly insulting of the two assumptions, when advanced : that of the skeptic, who insists that science is of course at war with religious faith; or that of the theologian, who insists that skepticism is of course the product of depravity. The former

assures his antagonist, at the outset, that he is a fool; and the latter knows the other to be a knave! The prospect of good from such a discussion must be faint indeed.

Coming now to the merits of the case, and endeavoring to ascertain the specific causes which beget a skeptical tendency in scientific men, we would include them in two.

I. The too exclusive study of the phenomena of matter. It is an unhealthy process to confine the mind to a single subject; for while the concentration of attention generates mental power in that direction, by enlightening and sharpening the intellect, moving the sensibility, and confirming the will, it often narrows the range of mental vision and feeling, throws objects into disproportion, and leads to erroneous judgments. It is thus that men of one idea," as they are popularly termed, though accomplishing much for their respective objects, and though necessary agencies in this imperfect world, are yet largely good only as by their variety they balance one another, and fill out the circle of thought and effort. Much is to be learned from each of them in succession, and society, in its sloth and sin, would scarcely move without their efforts. Yet we instinctively withhold our judgment from unconditional committal to their theories, plans, and methods. Now we know not why physical science, when made the chief study, may not operate in this manner to limit thought, and narrow even philosophic conclusions. It has often been observed that minds devoted to a certain course of studies are in a measure disqualified for doing justice to other branches of scholarship. It is seldom, for instance, that a purely mathematical mind makes a good reasoner on disputed points in morals and metaphysics, or manifests a correct and appreciative taste with reference to works of imagination. When Milton's Paradise Lost was handed to an eminent natural philosopher, he read and returned it with what was meant to be the disparaging, but was in reality the irrelevant question, "What does it prove?" Those whose idea of reasoning is derived from the necessary, inflexible demonstrations of geometry, carry a demand for the same kind and degree of proof into religious questions; and, not finding it, are easily and weakly thrown into doubt. And so those whose work is patient observation of the uniform operation of natural laws, watching material phenomena and classifying them in a

rigid system, seem to be out of their element when they discuss subjects which require a different order of mind and other processes of thought. We had an illustration of this truth when President Day, then the distinguished head of Yale College, whose treatises on Mathematics were once in universal use in this country, published two works on the human will. He could not throw off the influence of necessitated causes when he came to treat of the free spirit; but, at the critical points of the argument, invariably fell back on the analogy of material forces, and reasoned from cannon-balls, ocean-waves, and whirlwinds, to show that the will might be free and yet be caused to act! It is true that a few men of universal genius, such as Pascal, Descartes, Leibnitz, Berkeley, and Dugald Stewart, have excelled in both mathematical and metaphysical studies; yet it is from these very men, so competent to judge, we have the strongest testimony as to the limiting tendency of the former, and several of them confined their mathematical pursuits to their early years.

*

Thus those whose lives are spent in examining the phenom

*For an extended discussion of a portion of this subject, overwhelmingly proving the enfeebling influence on the mind of devotion to mere mathematical science, see Sir William Hamilton's Essay (in review of Whewell) on the "Study of Mathematics," in which that learned and acute author has not only set forth convincingly the reason of the case, but has aggregated an immense array of concurrent authorities of all countries, ages, and departments of knowledge.

His opinion of the similarly limiting influence of the exclusive pursuit of natural science may be gathered from the following extract from Lecture XXX of his Course on Logic, in which, pointing out the sources of error, he observes: "Favorite studies, inasmuch as these determine the mind to a one-sided cultivation, that is, to the neglect of some, and to the disproportionate development of others, of its faculties, are among the most remarkable causes of error. This partial or one-sided cultivation is exemplified in three different phases. The first of these is shown in the exclusive cultivation of the powers of observation to the neglect of the higher faculties of the understanding. Of this type are your men of physical science. In this department of knowledge there is chiefly demanded a patient habit of attention to details, in order to detect phenomena; and, these discovered, their generalization is usually so easy that there is little exercise afforded to the higher energies of judgment and reasoning. It was Bacon's boast that induction as applied to nature would equalize all talents, level the aristocracy of genius, accomplish marvels by co-operation and method, and leave little to be done by the force of individual intellects. This boast has been fulfilled. Science has, by the inductive process, been brought down to minds who previously would have been incompetent for its cultivation; and physical knowledge now usefully occupies many who would have otherwise been without any rational pursuit. But the exclusive

ena of God's material kingdom, and tracing the settled laws of matter through its varied properties and changing forms, come under the usual temptation of magnifying their office till it scarcely leaves occupation for others. Matter enlarges its sphere till the suspicion arises with some of these philosophers that it occupies the whole realm of being; that what we call spirit is but highly attenuated matter, so combined, or so developed, as to produce mental phenomena; that life differs not essentially from electricity, nor thought from force; that the brain generates ideas and forms volitions as directly as a duly constructed battery gives off a succession of sparks, or a sudden shock. The philosophy of these men thus tends to a low sensualism and materialism. And nearly all physicists, in fact, become so accustomed to fixed physical sequences, to the uniform action of necessary causes inhering in matter, to the constancy of nature in all her operations, mechanical, chemical, and vital, that they are prepared to ignore the spiritual, the free, the uncaused, the supernatural. They know no higher or other realm than that in which they delve, and ridicule theories and facts that do not come under scientific experience. Speak to them of miracles, and they reply that science knows nothing of miracles; which is true enough, but which only proves that natural science does not embrace all existence and action, or even all law, seeing it lies wholly below the region of the supernatural, where motives supersede forces, and the mechanical is replaced by the spiritual, and whence come both the power and the reason of miracles. Given, for instance, the person, character, and mission of Christ, and miracles are as natural an accompaniment as are the officers of state on the king at court. But in the mere realm of nature no miracle is needed, nor would even be in place, since nature is the kingdom of necessary and uniform law. Hence natural science takes no cognizance of miracles, and consequently scientific men hastily doubt their reality in the past. But this is the weakness of doubting all that is not included in their department, or of confounding that

devotion to such studies, if not combined with higher and graver speculations, tends to wean the student from the more vigorous efforts of mind, which, though unamusing and even irksome at the commencement, tend, however, to invigorate his nobler powers, and to prepare him for the final fruition of the highest happiness of his intellectual nature."