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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Science might perhaps conven 

 iently be defined as the kind and ex 

 tent of knowledge which the consti- 

 tution of the human mind permits 

 us to have; and, so viewing it, we 

 certainly fail to see what theology 

 can do for us in the way of bringing 

 knowledge or rational belief within 

 our reach that science can not do. 

 Will it be said that, while science re- 

 flects the limitations of the human 

 mind, theology doas not do so ? His- 

 tory would certainly not confirm such 

 a contention. Science uses imagina- 

 tion, but keeps it, or tries to keep it, 

 under control ; theology, if we judge 

 by the systems that have held sway 

 in the past, has used imagination, 

 has hardly even tried to control it, 

 and has often been completely over- 

 mastered by it. In ancient Egypt, 

 according to Erman, '* we find a my- 

 thology with myths which are abso- 

 lutely irreconcilable existing peace- 

 fully side by side; in short, an un- 

 paralleled confusion (which) . . . be- 

 came ever more hopeless during the 

 three thousand vears that, according 

 to the pyramid texts, the Egyptian 

 religion flourished." Yet the books 

 in which this religion was set forth 

 were so sacred that " even the gods 

 themselves were supposed to wash 

 seven times" before reading them. 

 u The lively Grecian," as we know, 



" In a land of hills, 

 Rivers and fertile plains and sounding shores, 

 Under a cope of variegated sky, 

 Could find commodious place for every god" ; 



but the myths he wove about those 

 gods were of so doubtful a moral 

 tendency that Plato was opposed to 

 allowing them to enter into the 

 education of youth. Of the sacred 

 rites of the Etruscans the historian 

 Mommsen says that ''their prevail- 

 ing characteristics are a gloomy and 

 withal tiresome mysticism, a ringing 

 the changes on numbers, soothsay- 

 ing, and that solemn enthroning of 



pure absurdity which at all times 

 finds its own circle of devotees." 

 The Latin religion, the same high 

 authority tells us, had a respectable 

 origin in the attempt to spiritualize 

 and generalize the phenomena of 

 Nature and the duties and functions 

 of everyday life ; but, by a gradual 

 process of change, it " sank into a 

 singular sobriety and dullness, and 

 early became shriveled into an anx- 

 ious and dreaiy round of ceremo- 

 nies." 



If science therefore can not lead 

 us into all truth, it is tolerably clear 

 that theology, as the world has here- 

 tofore known it, can not save us 

 from all error, but on the contrary 

 is exposed to all the perversions 

 which an unchecked use of imagina- 

 tion can entail. The task to which 

 Mr. Balfour has committed himself 

 is to show that the particular system 

 which he would recommend is free 

 from the imperfections and, so to 

 speak, organic weaknesses of all 

 other systems, and that it stands 

 forth as an unimpeachable authority 

 in all those matters upon which sci- 

 ence is incapable of instructing us. 

 The accomplishment of this task, it 

 is needless to say, will be watched 

 with much interest by every reader 

 of Mr. Balfour's recent volume. 



We may remark before conclud- 

 ing that we are not nearly as much 

 troubled as Mr. Balfour evidently 

 thinks upholders of "naturalism" 

 ought to be, by the knowledge that 

 the primary data of science do not 

 afford any hint of the moral law or 

 of the highly developed human emo- 

 tions that are associated therewith. 

 Neither does the atomic theory or 

 molecular chemistry afford any hint 

 of the wonders of organic life, which 

 yet depend on molecular association. 

 We might know all that is to be 

 known in regard to the elements as 

 elements without discovering- the se- 

 cret of the rose or of the tiniest 



