"NATURAL RELIGIONS 607 



lem before us: "Two opposite theories of the universe are in con- 

 flict. On the one side is the greatest of all affirmations, on the 

 other the most fatal of all negations. There never yet was a con- 

 troversy which was not trivial in comparison with this. It is cruel 

 trifling to speak of compromise, it is waste of time to draw verbal 

 distinctions." And then, after two hundred pages of verbal distinc- 

 tions, many of which are really no better, a compromise is effected 

 upon the basis of natural religion, which is also natural Christian- 

 ity without its supernaturalism. But the writer has no wish to de- 

 ceive either himself or his readers, and concludes, " Who will not 

 say that a supernatural religion, supplementing a natural one, may 

 be precious, nay, perhaps indispensable?" And indispensable he 

 shows it to be, from his own point of view : " When the supernatural 

 does not come in to overwhelm the natural and turn life upside down, 

 when it is admitted that religion deals in the first instance with the 

 known and the natural, then we may well begin to doubt whether the 

 known and the natural can suffice for human life. No sooner do we 

 try to think so, than pessimism raises its head. ... A moral paralysis 

 creeps upon us. . . . Supernatural Religion met this want by connect- 

 ing Love and Righteousness with eternity. If it is shaken, how shall 

 its place be supplied ? And what would Natural Religion avail then ? " 

 We have, then, to remember that this attempt to establish a harmony 

 between orthodoxy and the votaries of art and science, upon the mini- 

 mum basis of a faith without a personal God and without miracles, is 

 a compromise honestly offered by one who himself apparently still 

 cherishes these beliefs. It is a fair attempt to arrive at some under- 

 standing by sinking out of sight the points upon which people differ, 

 and by bringing into prominence their points of agreement. 



As I suppose that most of my readers have either read this book 

 or intend to do so, anything like a full account of its contents here 

 will be unnecessary. It will not, however, be out of place to attempt 

 a slight sketch of its general argument and conclusions. Our author 

 begins by pointing to the divinity of nature as the common ground 

 between Clmstianity and science. The real issue is not between the- 

 ism and atheism, for science is in a veiy real sense a theology, and 

 believers in nature have many of the feelings of Christians for their 

 deity. Thus, we have a natural theology ; it will widen into a nat- 

 ural religion, when the science of the relation of the universe to hu- 

 man ideals has grown up ; and this science, upon a purely natural 

 basis, is fast constructing itself. Defining worship as " habitual and 

 permanent admiration," he sees nothing to fear in the gospels of art 

 and humanity. Just as the gospel of science is an allotropic form of 

 mediaeval theology, so is the gospel of art the revival of Greek pagan- 

 ism under altered conditions, and the gospel of humanity that of Chris- 

 tianity. Each is, to some individuals, a faith in itself, because it lifts 

 them above mere materialism, above conventionalism, above the ordi- 



