GOD AND NATURE. 27 



That the full outcome of these discoveries has not yet been reached 

 there can be no doubt. Speculation in such matters is easy ; but facts 

 developed are sufficiently wonderful to command deepest* admiration, 

 without conjecture as to future possibilities. 







GOD AKD NATUKE. 



By the Eight Kev. the LOED BISHOP OF CAELISLE. 



AN elderly clergyman, dying some years ago in the east of Lon- 

 don, bequeathed his silver spoons and the like to his nephews 

 and nieces. But the spoons could nowhere be found. Ultimately they 

 were discovered in a closet beneath a pile of sermons ; the good 

 clergyman having, for the sake of safety, chosen for his little stock 

 of plate the place in which, as he imagined, it was most likely to be 

 permitted to remain undisturbed. 



I fear that I committed a mistake not long since by doing some- 

 thing analogous to that which was done by him whose providence I 

 have just now chronicled, though with a different intention. I printed, 

 in the form of an Appendix to a volume of " Oxford and Cambridge 

 Sermons," a note on " Matter," for some portion of which, at least, I 

 should like to crave more consideration than perhaps it has already 

 received. The following paragraph contains the thought which I wish 

 just now to put before the reader and to develop in this essay : 



" I have referred to Cudworth's discussion of theories of matter 

 with regard to the possible atheistic tendencies of some of them ; and 

 the time has not gone by, perhaps it never will, when the fear of 

 atheism, as growing out of physical theories, will have ceased to exist. 

 I am by no means prepared to say that there is no ground for such 

 fear ; but I think that some portion at least of the danger of science 

 being found to have atheistic tendencies would be got rid of, if a 

 clearer view could be obtained of the manner in which it is possible 

 to establish a connection between physical theories and atheistic con- 

 clusions. It seems to me that we want a new word to express the fact 

 that all physical science, properly so called, is compelled by its very 

 nature to take no account of the being of God : as soon as it does this, 

 it trenches upon theology, and ceases to be physical science. If I 

 might coin a word, I should say that science was atheous, and there- 

 fore could not be atheistic; that is to say, its investigations and reason- 

 ings are by agreement conversant simply with observed facts and con- 

 clusions drawn from them, and in this sense it is atheous, or without rec- 

 ognition of God. And, because it is so, it does not in any way trench 

 upon theism or theology, and can not be atheistic, or in the condition 

 of denying the being of God. Take the case of physical astronomy. 



