HARMONIES OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 583 



whole societies or nations. Something of the kind happened with 

 the Stoics of the imperial period. Their philosophy was only just 

 above suicide-mark, and was continually dropping below it. In Asia 

 the same is ti'ue of whole populations, with whom the value of life has 

 sunk to the very lowest point. 



Of all these classes of men we say very justly that they want faith. 

 Their criminality or languor or despair are the consequences of their 

 having no faith. But we sometimes express the same thing differently 

 and say that they have no God, no theology. With our Christian 

 habit of connecting God with goodness and love, we confuse together 

 the notions of a theology and a faith. Let us reflect that it is quite 

 possible to have a theology without having a faith. We may believe 

 in a God, but a God unfavorable, hostile, or indifferent to us. In the 

 same way we may believe in a God neither altogether friendly nor 

 altogether the reverse. The different pagan theologies were of this 

 kind, and even many Christian sects, while nominally holding the per- 

 fect benevolence of God, have pi'actically worshiped a Being who in 

 this respect did not differ from the pagan deities. 



It would be legitimate to call such general views of the relation 

 of Nature to our ideals by the name of theology in all cases, and not 

 merely those particular general views which are encouraging. If we 

 believe that Nature helps us in our strivings, we have both a theology 

 and a faith ; if we believe that Nature is indifferent to us, or hostile 

 to us, we have no faith, but we have still a theology. We have still 

 a definite notion of God's dealings with us. And this use of the word 

 is not only justified by its etymology ; it is much more conformable 

 to actual usage. To identify theology with the doctrine of the super- 

 natural is, as I have pointed out, to narrow the meaning of the word 

 unnaturally, and to appropriate it to a particular part of a jDarticular 

 theological system. The practical effect of giving this technical sense 

 to a word which in the common understanding has a much larger 

 meaning, is to produce a deception. When those who reject the super- 

 natural declare theology to be exploded, they are commonly under- 

 stood to mean that a vast mass of doctrine, partly moral, partly his- 

 torical, partly jihysical, in which the supernatural is mixed up, is ex- 

 ploded, whereas all tliey really say is that just that part is exploded 

 which is supported only by the evidence of the supernatural. In like 

 manner it is but a small part of what is commonly understood by 

 theology that has to do with final causes, and yet those who consider 

 final causes not objects of knowledge are fond of drawing the infer- 

 ence that all theological systems must be systems of spurious knowl- 

 edge. Sometimes this juggle which is practised witli the Avord the- 

 ology becomes grotesquely apparent, and a skeptic will tell us in the 

 same breath that theology deals with matters entirely beyond the 

 range of human intellect, and that theology has been refuted by the 

 discovei'ies of modern science. 



