But an inversion of the order of the universe, as well as of our inbred convictions, of our experience of things as well as of our inner consciousness, must take place before we can admit indifference or malice, a willingness to deceive or a capacity of deception in the Author and Administrator of the world. And yet this is implied in the assumption on a rea that the human race in its most distinguished conviction. representatives and on the subjects of the highest

grounded

sonable

moment lies still in darkness. "God owes it to mankind not to lead them into error," is the bold language of Pascal." "Truth," says Milton, "is strong next to the Almighty." As it is ludicrous

East it dawned on the races of the North."-Ozanam, Civilis. Chret., I. pp. 18-20, E. T. Mr. Tylor, Hist. Prim. Cult., I. 421, speaking of natural religion, remarks that "the history of religion displays but too plainly the proneness of mankind to relapse, in spite of reformation, into the lower and darker condition of the past."

1 There is a tendency in the Positivist system to assume not only that in the constitution of things error is employed as a means to truth, but that this theorem covers the whole of religious belief. Thus theology, which in this system of thought is imaginary, is allowed to have been an important stage in the advance of the human race, yet only as a sort of "pis-aller." See Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 693. The language of the Apostle in Acts xvii. 30 (τοὺς μὲν οὖν χρόνους τῆς ἀγνοίας ὑπεριδὼν ὁ Ocòs) may in the English version be liable to be mistaken. But his argument on this deeply momentous subject, "the fulness of times," as expanded in Rom. c. i., ii., and Gal. iii., iv., can hardly be misapprehended. See Bunsen, God in History, Vol. I. 215, E. T.

"Dieu doit aux hommes de ne pas les induire en erreur."-Pensées. "The established order of things in which we find ourselves, if it has a Creator, must surely speak of His will in its broad outlines and main issues."-Newman, Grammar of Assent, p. 391. Comp. Farrar's Witness of History to Christ, p. 92. See Sir W. Hamilton (Reid, 743, 745). Mr. Mill's criticism (Exam., p. 136) is invalid so long as there are truths of consciousness leading up to the recognition of God.

to go about to prove the reality of those percep-
tions which alone exist to us as the means of
discovering facts;. so were it futile to suspect the
ultimate triumph of truth over falsehood, or to
question the tendency of things in the long run
to exhibit its progress. The improvement of
mankind in successive ages is indisputable, and
improvement involves at least approximation to
truth. Whatever be the obstacles to their
of self-assertion, the Grand Justiciary of reason
and of fact is Time.'

power

what sense

§ 5. What, however, is meant by Time in these Time in considerations, and how much may justly be attri- an agency. buted to it? In what respects is it an element of progress in the history of knowledge? It is no mere abstraction or Idol of the Tribe. It is a real condition of all human operation, speculative or practical. Its function may be compared to an analytic yet constructive process; which dividing and disengaging elements before believed to be inseparable, renders re-arrangement and reconstruction possible and simple. Such is the work

1 "Le temps, le grand Justicier du passé."-Montaigne. Cicero (Nat. D., II. ii. 5), speaking of the existence of God, says: "Quod nisi cognitum comprehensumque animis haberemus, non tam stabilis opinio permaneret, nec confirmaretur diuturnitate temporis nec una cum sæculis ætatibusque hominum inveterari potuisset. Et enim videmus cæteras opiniones fictas atque vanas diuturnitate extabuisse. . . . Opinionum enim commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia confirmat."

2

M. Littré (A. Comte et la Phil. Pos., p. 45) well observes: "Le temps, faisant l'office des forts grossissements, montre disjoint ce qui apparaît étroitement conjoint dans l'esprit d'un même penseur."

C

of continuous generations toiling unconsciously as one man in the quest of Truth, but with this advantage, that they are uninterrupted by individual mortality. Some thinkers use Time too readily and profusely as an agent, whether in physical changes, or in the advance of opinion and the overthrow of superstitions by a sort of natural and spontaneous growth of the human mind-a gradual evolution of conviction, the spirit and tendency of the age, the fruit of time and succession. It should be clearly understood that all such results are, in fact, the work of individual effort, admitting of distinct explanation. The tendencies of an age are the unperceived consequences of foregone argument. They are "changes wrought not by Time, but in Time.' In the work of religious "truth," it has been finely said, "Time means the blood of many martyrs, the toil of many brains, slow steps made good through infinite research." In this manner

1 "De sorte que toute la suite des hommes, pendant le cours de tant de siècles, doit être considérée comme un même homme qui subsiste toujours et qui apprend continuellement."-Pascal (Pensées, I. p. 98).

Thus "the prehistoric archæologist," says Mr. Tylor, Hist. Prim. Cult., I. p. 50, "shows even too much disposition to revel in calculations of thousands of years, as a financier does in reckonings of thousands of pounds in a liberal and maybe somewhat reckless way." See, however, Lange, Gesch. d. Materialismus, p. 342. In the School of Positive Science, "c'est le temps qui est ici le grand créateur," says M. Janet.— Le Matérialisme Contemporain, p. 24.

Greg's Literary and Social Judgments, p. 478. Compare Professor Goldwin Smith, Study of History, p. 34. Human progress "is a progress of effort, not a necessary development," &c.

it comes about that no great verity once discovered is ever afterwards lost to mankind,' but is taken up and carried along by the stream of human effort. In the words of the poet they are

Truths that wake
To perish never.

sent argu

6. The objections which lie against all posi- The pretive attempts to criticise the plan of a Divine ment, a posteriori. Revelation, do not apply to an inquiry which is relative to a matter of fact. The present argument does not run up into questionable final causes, or depend for its acceptance on dubious interpretations of remote prophecies. It forms no Not deanticipations of the thoughts of Heaven. But final rather it humbly seeks to track upwards through

1 "No great truth which has once been found has ever afterwards been lost."-Buckle, Hist. Civ., I. 215. "What has once become the common property of humanity, i. e. any visible presentation of a principle that has come to be universally recognized and universally operative, cannot perish, but has life in itself. . . . Such ideas form the pathway of God in history-the light of Heaven amid the darkness of the earth.”— Bunsen, God in Hist., I. p. 36, 53. Compare Aristotle, Metaph., xi. 7 : Ταύτας τὰς δόξας ἐκείνων, οἷον λείψανα περισεσῶσθαι μέχρι τοῦ νῦν. Bacon's self-contradiction that "Time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid," has been very properly exposed by Mr. Mill, Logic, II. 428.

2 Positive, because, though we may see that many parts of Christianity are worthy of God, we are not hastily to conclude that where we do not see this such parts do not come from Him. See Rogers, Essays, II. 379. "It is no just consequence that reason is no judge of what is offered to us as being of divine revelation. For this would be to infer that we are unable to judge of anything because we are unable to judge of all things."-Butler, Analogy, Pt. II. c. iii.

pendent on

causes.

the past the course of "natural revelation," applying to ascertained matters of fact the lamp of inherited experience. So

By the light His words disclose,
Watch Time's full river as it flows:
Scanning His gracious Providence,
Where not too deep for mortal sense.

All the irregularity of human affairs arises from our not being able to see the whole at once. But the further we advance along the world's history and in general knowledge, the more we approach an estimate of the reasons of things and of the current of affairs.' It is not then the existence of final causes in the formation and working of the world which needs be held unsatisfactory by the

1 "The moral system of the universe," says a powerful but uncertain writer, "is like a document written in alternate ciphers, which change from line to line. We read a sentence, but at the next the key fails us. We see that there is something written there, but if we guess at it we are guessing in the dark." Yet the same author is not long in supplying an antidote to any scepticism which may lurk in such reflections. "If we believe," he adds, "at all that the world is governed by a conscious and intelligent Being, we must believe also, however we can reconcile it with our own ideas, that these anomalies have not arisen by accident, but have been ordered of purpose and design."-Froude on Calvinism, p. 5. This, Butler points out, is the necessary result of the government of God considered as a scheme in progress, and therefore imperfectly comprehended. See also Shaftesbury, Characteristics, II. 363, and the fine passage in Plato, Legg., X. 903. Augustine compares the order of the universe to a tessellated floor, of which we hold the part. "At enim," he adds, "hoc ipsum est plenius quæstionum, quod membra pulicis disposita mire atque distincta sunt, cum interea humana vita innumerabilium perturbationum inconstantiâ versetur et fluctuet."-De Ordine, c. i. "La seule question," says M. Renan, Études, p. 404, "intéressante pour le philosophe est de savoir de quel côté va le monde."