z8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the trial begins. The existence of changeless law, the regular, natural, 

 and orderly march of life, the numerous cases in which what seemed 

 to be the effect of chance or miracle have been brought within the. 

 limits of ascertained causation; all these things predispose the mind 

 against pleadings for the supernatural or the divine. Most true, ot 

 course, it is, that there are most powerful prepossessions on the other 

 side as well ; but the difference is, that these are as old as man him- 

 self, while the former have only been of later times imported into the 

 debate, and, if they have not been originated, have at least received 

 their definite aim and vivid impulse from the results of scientific 

 research. 



Now, the first result which flows from these alterations is the some- 

 what startling one, that all the arguments for immortality derived from 

 natural religion (so called) are, in the estimation of science, absolutely 

 futile. To put this point in the strongest form, all the hopes, wishes, 

 and convictions of all the men that ever lived, could not and cannot 

 convince one single mind that disbelieves in its own immortality. 

 Unless the advocates of religion clearly apprehend this truth, they are, 

 it seems to me, quite disabled from entering into the discussion upon 

 conditions which their opponents, by the very law of this opposition, 

 cannot but demand. It is true, indeed, that this temper of mind is 

 confined at present to a comparatively few persons, as in the last 

 century it belonged to the philosophers and to their immediate 

 followers. But then it is as clear as the day that, as science is getting 

 a more and more practical hold upon men's minds by a thousand 

 avenues, and mastering them by a series of brilliant successes, this 

 temper is rapidly passing from the few into the popular mind ; that 

 it is becoming part of the furniture of the human intellect, and is 

 powerfully influencing the very conditions of human nature. Sooner 

 or later we shall have to face a disposition in the minds of men to 

 accept nothing as fact, but what facts can prove, or the senses bear 

 witness to. In vain will witness after witness be called to prove the 

 inalienable prerogative, the intuitional convictions, the universal 

 aspirations, the sentimental longings, the moral necessity, all which 

 have existed in the heart of man since man was. Nor will the science 

 of religion help us in the hour of need. There can be a science of 

 religion exactly as there can be a science of alchemy. All that men 

 have ever thought or believed about the transmutation of metals may 

 be brought together, classified as facts, and form a valuable addition 

 to our knowledge of the history of the human mind, but it would not 

 thereby prove that the transmutation had taken place, or that the 

 desire for it was any thing more than man's childlike strivings after 

 that which could only be really revealed by the methods of natural 

 science. So also the science of religion can prove what men have held, 

 and suggest what they ought to hold. It can show that they have 

 believed certain things to be true, it is utterly powerless to prove that 



