THE LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND OF SCIENCE. 647 



walk delicately among " types " and allegories. A certain passion 

 for clearness forces me to ask, bluntly, whether the writer means 

 to say that Jesus did not believe the stories in question, or that he 

 did ? When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that * the flood 

 came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the deluge 

 really took place, or not ? It seems to me that, as the narrative 

 mentions Noah's wife, and his sons' wives, there is good scriptural 

 warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and 

 were given in marriage ; and I should have thought that their 

 eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in 

 the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what 

 sort of value, as an illustration of God's methods of dealing with 

 sin, has an account of an event that has never happened ? If no 

 flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more 

 worth than the cry of " wolf " when there is no wolf ? If Jonah's 

 three days' residence in the whale is not an " admitted reality," 

 how could it " warrant belief " in the " coming resurrection " ? If 

 Lot's wife was not turned into a pillar of salt, the bidding those 

 who turn back from the narrow path to u remember " it is, mor- 

 ally, about on a level with telling a naughty child that a bogy is 

 coming to fetch it away. Suppose that a conservative orator 

 warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, 

 lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre ; 

 what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, 

 personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the 

 deeds attributed to him ? 



Like all other attempts to reconcile the results of scientifically 

 conducted investigation with the demands of the outworn creeds 

 of ecclesiasticism, the essay on Inspiration is just such a failure 

 as must await mediation, when the mediator is unable properly 

 to appreciate the weight of the evidence for the case of one of the 

 two parties. The question of "inspiration" really possesses no 

 interest for those who have cast ecclesiasticism and all its works 

 aside, and have no faith in any source of truth save that which is 

 reached by the patient application of scientific methods. Theories 

 of inspiration are speculations as to the means by which the au- 

 thors of statements, in the Bible or elsewhere, have been led to say 

 what they have said — and it assumes that natural agencies are in- 

 sufficient for the purpose. I prefer to stop short of this problem, 

 finding it more profitable to undertake the inquiry which natu- 

 rally precedes it — namely, Are these statements true or false ? If 

 they are true, it may be worth while to go into the question of 

 their supernatural generation ; if they are false, it certainly is 

 not worth mine. 



Now, not only do I hold it to be proved that the story of the 

 deluge is a pure fiction ; but I have no hesitation in afiirming the 



