Part 53

Declaration on the Truth of Holy Scripture. The Times, 18th December 1891.

Declaration, Article 10.

Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi ecclesiæ Catholicæ me commoveret auctoritas.--Contra Epistolam Manichæi, cap. v.

I employ the words "Supernature" and "Supernatural" in their popular senses. For myself, I am bound to say that the term "Nature" covers the totality of that which is. The world of psychical phenomena appears to me to be as much part of "Nature" as the world of physical phenomena; and I am unable to perceive any justification for cutting the Universe into two halves, one natural and one supernatural.

The general reader will find an admirably clear and concise statement of the evidence in this case, in Professor Flower's recently published work The Horse: a Study in Natural History.

"The School Boards: What they can do and what they may do," 1870. Critiques and Addresses, p. 51.

De Solido intra Solidum, p. 5.--"Dato corpore certâ figurâ prædito et juxta leges naturæ producto, in ipso corpore argumenta invenire locum et modum productionis detegentia."

"Corpora sibi invicem omnino similia simili etiam modo producta sunt."

The Nineteenth Century.

Earlier, if more recent announcements are correct.

It may be objected that I have not put the case fairly, inasmuch as the solitary insect's wing which was discovered twelve months ago in Silurian rocks, and which is, at present, the sole evidence of insects older than the Devonian epoch, came from strata of Middle Silurian age, and is therefore older than the scorpions which, within the last two years, have been found in Upper Silurian strata in Sweden, Britain, and the United States. But no one who comprehends the nature of the evidence afforded by fossil remains would venture to say that the non-discovery of scorpions in the Middle Silurian strata, up to this time, affords any more ground for supposing that they did not exist, than the non-discovery of flying insects in the Upper Silurian strata, up to this time, throws any doubt on the certainty that they existed, which is derived from the occurrence of the wing in the Middle Silurian. In fact, I have stretched a point in admitting that these fossils afford a colourable pretext for the assumption that the land and air-population were of contemporaneous origin.

The Nineteenth Century, 1886.

Both dolphins and dugongs occur in the Red Sea, porpoises and dolphins in the Mediterranean; so that the "Mosaic writer" may well have been acquainted with them.

I said nothing about "the greater number of schools of Greek philosophy," as Mr. Gladstone implies that I did, but expressly spoke of the "founders of Greek philosophy."

See Heinze, Die Lehre vom Logos, p. 9 et seq.

Reprinted in Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, 1870.

"Ancient," doubtless, but his antiquity must not be exaggerated. For example, there is no proof that the "Mosaic" cosmogony was known to the Israelites of Solomon's time.

When Jeremiah (iv. 23) says, "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void," he certainly does not mean to imply that the form of the earth was less definite, or its substance less solid, than before.

In looking through the delightful volume recently published by the Astronomer Royal for Ireland, a day or two ago, I find the following remarks on the nebular hypothesis, which I should have been glad to quote in my text if I had known them sooner:--

"Nor can it be ever more than a speculation; it cannot be established by observation, nor can it be proved by calculation. It is merely a conjecture, more or less plausible, but perhaps, in some degree, necessarily true, if our present laws of heat, as we understand them, admit of the extreme application here required, and if the present order of things has reigned for sufficient time without the intervention of any influence at present known to us" (The Story of the Heavens, p. 506).

Would any prudent advocate base a plea, either for or against revelation, upon the coincidence, or want of coincidence, of the declarations of the latter with the requirements of an hypothesis thus guardedly dealt with by an astronomical expert?

Lectures on Evolution delivered in New York (American Addresses).

Reuss, L'Histoire Sainte et la Loi, vol. i. p. 275.

For the sense of the term "Elohim," see p. 141.

Perhaps even hippopotamuses and otters!

Even the most sturdy believers in the popular theory that the proper or titular names attached to the books of the Bible are those of their authors will hardly be prepared to maintain that Jephthah, Gideon, and their colleagues wrote the book of Judges. Nor is it easily admissible that Samuel wrote the two books which pass under his name, one of which deals entirely with events which took place after his death. In fact, no one knows who wrote either Judges or Samuel, nor when, within the range of 100 years, their present form was given to these books.

My citations are taken from the Revised Version, but for LORD and GOD I have substituted Jahveh and Elohim.

I need hardly say that I depend upon authoritative Biblical critics, whenever a question of interpretation of the text arises. As Reuss appears to me to be one of the most learned, acute, and fair-minded of those whose works I have studied, I have made most use of the commentary and dissertations in his splendid French edition of the Bible. But I have also had recourse to the works of Dillman, Kalisch, Kuenen, Thenius, Tuch, and others, in cases in which another opinion seemed desirable.