RECTOR OF SANDON, IN ESSEX; and late fellow of QUEEN'S COLLEGE, Cambridge LONDON All rights reserved PREFACE. I PUBLISH the following Essays as an attempt to do something for an object which seems to me of the highest importance in these days, viz. the reconciliation of religion and science. When I do so, I feel strongly that they fall much short of accomplishing such a reconciliation. For even if their success in dealing with the questions of which they treat should be much greater than I have any right to believe that it is, still it would be true that they did nothing as to that class of difficulties which concerns the nature and extent of the inspiration of the Bible, and the alleged discrepancies between its statements and the results of modern science and criticism. But I still hope that what I now put forward may have some value. I have endeavoured fairly to take into account what I suppose to be the ultimate position of modern science; that position to which at all events men of science are tending, viz. the recognition of a universal reign of law both now and also at least for an immense period of past time, and the consequent belief that the universe has come into its present state by a very prolonged evolution of some kind. How far this view is well founded I have not undertaken to decide; but I have endeavoured to judge what are its bearings upon the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion, and to establish the truth of those doctrines without any assertion necessarily inconsistent with this view. My object has been to show how men who hold the views of modern science may still accept the Christian religion. As argument to be of any good effect must proceed upon common ground, I have wished upon all occasions to assume nothing which a moderate and candid opponent might not, I hoped, allow; and I have honestly tried to take into account any objection which seemed to me plausible. Thus I have not urged the authority of the Fourth Gospel as a work of the Apostle St. John, although it would much strengthen my case, because I thought that the sceptical party would generally refuse to allow that the Gospel was St. John's. And when I came to examine the critical point in the historical evidences of Christianity, viz. the proofs of the resurrection of Christ, I thought it right to mention and consider all the weak points in the evidence which are known to me. In writing thus I may at times have expressed myself in a way painful to some Christians, although it has been my endeavour not merely to observe the limitations imposed upon me by my position as a clergyman of the Church of England, but also to respect the feelings of my fellow-Christians. If I do give offence, I must plead in my defence the great need at the present day of answering sceptical arguments, and also the great need of manifest moderation and fairness, if our answers are to have a good effect. My work, I allow, has a negative part. I have examined the arguments of a school of Christian apologists whose reasonings certainly cannot be reconciled with the scientific view mentioned above, but who have been much relied upon in this country as argumentative defenders of Christianity. I have taken Bishop Butler and Archdeacon Paley as representing this school probably to the best advantage, and I have felt obliged to conclude that their arguments have lost much of their value, though not all. But at the same time I have tried to show that there were other grounds, viz. the witness of the moral faculty, on which the authority of the moral teaching of our religion and the truth of its |