Lessons from Nature

This postscript specially called for-Reason expects revelation-Modern
philosophy has diverged from this attitude-Mr. Spencer and evolution
-Evolution welcomed by Antichristians-Rational attitude of a Theist

towards religious systems-Christianity asserts creation-The Genesis

of Species-And Professor Huxley-A misapprehension-His astonish-

ment-Another misapprehension-An explanation-Suarez-The fact

of creation-Another misapprehension-Want of acquaintance with

theology-Authorities-An utter mistake-Solvitur ambulando-Chris-

tianity and reason-Mode of controversy-Restatement of issue-A

retrospect and conclusion

pp. 422-449

INDEX.

p. 451

LESSONS FROM NATURE.

CHAPTER I.

THE STARTING-POINT.

"Our own continued existence is a primary truth naturally made known to us with supreme certainty, and this certainty cannot be denied without involving the destruction of all knowledge whatever."

may be said to

Nor is

Reasons why the contem

plation of

become a

THE philosophic contemplation of nature be a passion of the age in which we live. the reason why, far to seek. Every physical science, when once its study is fairly begun, never fails nature has to excite much interest, and in our day a certain passion. knowledge of physical science has become widely diffused. Most popular sciences, zoology, botany, and geology, &c., can be followed with ease by all commonly gifted minds, and the beauty, variety, and inexhaustible multitude of the facts and relations they disclose are such as may well make that interest become intense and absorbing. But when it is recollected that to the attraction these sciences possess in themselves there is now added the interest called forth by the generally diffused belief (whether rightly or wrongly entertained) that by these much light may be thrown upon the deepest problems and the most important questions which can occupy men's minds, it becomes easy to understand why a very large part of our popular lectures and of our periodical literature should be devoted to subjects of natural history, so treated as to bear, directly or by implication,

upon questions of origin and agency and purpose; devoted, in short, to physical philosophy. The problem of the true relation subsisting between irrational and rational nature is the problem of the day. An endeavour then will here be made to elucidate what are the lessons taught us by a combined study of nature in its two aspects, rational and irrational.

activity of

our age.

It is probable that the last quarter of a century has, in Speculative England, seen a more quickly growing and more wide-spread crop of speculative questioning than any former period of like duration. More than this, it is doubtful whether any period of the world's past history has witnessed a more general uncertainty, not only respecting the solution of particular problems, but as to the possibility of satisfactorily and certainly answering any one of them.

Thus it has come about that from increased speculative activity, and the inability of physical science to satisfy the questions raised, men devoted to physical science have been forced into philosophy. "Metaphysics," which had become (especially in this country) a byword of reproach, are again avowedly pursued. A reaction has set in, and the importance of philosophy, indeed its absolute necessity as a basis for science, is made manifest by the most popular teachers of physical knowledge. On the Continent, Buchner, Vogt, Hartmann, and Strauss have powerfully aided in directing popular attention to philosophical problems. In England, in spite of the oft-repeated assertions of the unprogressiveness of metaphysics, and the comparisons drawn between the efforts of metaphysicians and those of Sisyphus, our bookshelves teem with evidence that devotion to philosophy is on the increase amongst us, and physicists such as Carpenter, Bence Jones, Bastian, Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, Wallace, with many more, have all, in various degrees, wandered beyond the domain which is specially their own into the metaphysical region. Even that annual national congress, which was instituted expressly for the promotion of physical science, had its session of 1872 inaugurated by an address on "the mental processes by which are formed those fundamental

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