CHAPTER XXI.

NATURAL THEOLOGY

THE School of M. Comte, both in its French and British departments, is essentially a Sect, separated from other philosophies, and with very narrow sympathies. It has been made so partly by the circumstance that its adherents were at first few, and had to meet not only with opposition but with contempt from the leading metaphysicians of the age; but it is so essentially, because it has cut itself off from the streams which flow down from the past, and, like a pool, it has no connexion with anything beyond itself. Though no longer a small body, and though by their intellectual power and perseverance they have compelled their opponents to respect them, the disciples have still the exclusiveness of a sect: they read one another, they quote one another, and they criticise one another, they are incapable of appreciating any other philosophy. The two articles of their creed, and the two points that unite them, are the theory of nescience, and that of the steps by which knowledge has made progress. I have been

examining the first all throughout this work. Before I close I must notice the other.

The famous law of sociology, as developed by M. Comte, is about as rash a generalization as was ever made by a Presocratic physiologist, a mediæval schoolman, or a modern German speculator. It realizes the description given by Bacon of empiricists, who are represented as rising at once from a limited observation of facts to the highest and widest generalizations. The theory contains a small amount of truth, which it has misunderstood and perverted. In the early ages of the world, and in simple states of society at all times, mankind are inclined to see God or the gods as acting without any secondary instrumentality, in operations which are found subsequently to take place according to natural law. The reason of this is very simple, and very obvious, and has often been noticed it is that mankind are prompted by the native principle of causation to seek for a cause to every event, while they have not so large an experience as to enable them to discover the uniformity in the cosmos. This state of society constitutes what M. Comte calls the Theological Era; which, however, does not imply that men are more disposed to see God in His works, and to worship, love, and obey Him, than in other ages; but simply that they believe Him to act or interpose by a free operation, independent of all physical causation.

As observation widens and intelligence advances, men learn to abstract and generalize upon the phenomena of nature. They are apt to do so in the first instance-as being

the easiest method-by mere mental force or inward cogitation. Not having learned to perform experiments, they cannot distinguish between the various subtle powers and elements which operate in nature, nor to make what Bacon calls the necessary "rejections and exclusions." Generalizing the obvious facts, they represent the sun and stars as moving daily round the earth, and, as they find they cannot thus explain the whole phenomena, they give a special motion to the moon and planets, and call in eccentrics and epicycles. Or, abstracting what seems common in the obvious operations of earthly agents, they represent the components of the universe as being the fiery, the aërial, the aqueous, and the solid powers; and speak of certain bodies being in their very nature light and others heavy. This is what is called the Metaphysical Era. Not that mankind are then inclined to cultivate metaphysics in any proper sense of the term, or more than any other department of inquiry; but simply that they hasten to grasp the operations of nature within and without them by mental acts, and have not learned-what it required a Bacon to tell us-that investigation must proceed gradually, and by means of enlarged observation and careful experiment. So far from being in any peculiar sense a metaphysical age, it sought to penetrate into all the departments of nature, and inquired into the origin and structure of the universe, and the movements of the celestial bodies. It did enter upon metaphysical subjects, but it was as it rushed into physiological and astrological speculations; and it discussed them all in the same spirit. The Presocratic

schools, for example, did inquire into the nature of knowing, and being, and the human soul; but it was as they inquired into the primary principle or elements of the universe. They satisfied themselves with a few common observations, and then proceeded to apply thought to them. In pure metaphysical questions they distinguished in a rude way between Sensation and Reason, and when this division was found insufficient, they called in a vague intermediate principle called Opinion or Faith. Such ages have no special title to be called the Metaphysical Era: they treat physics and metaphysics in the same undistinguishing and uncertain manner. Nor are they to be regarded as necessarily non-theological ages. No doubt there were curious questions started, which could not be settled, as to the relation between these rapidly generalized and abstract powers, and the gods who ruled in heaven. There were thus stirred theological questions which tended to undermine the old superstitions, and to prepare the way for a better era. It was at this time- the fulness of time' -that Christianity was introduced as a seed into a soil ploughed to receive it.

In the natural advancement of intelligence, especially after the great awakening of thought in the sixteenth century, it was felt that the old methods were waxing old, and must soon vanish away. These methods are happily described by Bacon as the 'Rational' so presumptuous, the 'Empirical' so narrow, and the 'Superstitious' which made religion accomplish what could be done only by science. At this time there appeared such men as

Galileo practising careful experiment, and Bacon himself to expound the general principles of the true mode of procedure-of which method the Positive Philosophy is merely a monstrous outgrowth. This Era should be called the Inductive. It may be quite as metaphysical as the previous ones, only it will conduct the investigations in a new spirit and mode, that is, according to the Method of Induction. This new spirit (though the method was not yet properly understood) sprang up in the seventeenth century, and was fostered by such men as Descartes, who taught us to look into the mind to discover its operations, and by Locke, who appealed to experience. Since that time an inductive mental science, distracted from time to time by an ambitious a priori, or by a narrow empirical philosophy, has run parallel to physical science. Nor is this era necessarily an untheological one. Never were questions of divinity discussed so keenly as in the ages when the inductive spirit sprang up, and was applied to the study of the human mind. And I believe that there is as much, and as intense, religious feeling in our country at this present time as there ever was in any country since man appeared on the earth; and sooner or later there will be a tremendous reaction against the present attempt to deaden the religious instincts among our young men by a cold unbelief. No doubt educated men cannot now see the constant interpositions of God which were noticed in early ages; but it is because they take an enlarged and enlightened view of the course of nature, which they regard as ordered by God in infinite wisdom, and as the