Chase.] J-4-i [Feb. 7. 



authority for .students in other fields us he chums for himself. Let his sci- 

 entific reputation be as high, and his physical discoveries as brilliant as 

 they may, he may feel himself honored by the avowal that he is a lover 

 of wisdom, like David and Solomon and John and Paul, and by owning 

 that their experimental knowledge of the spiritual truths, which they pro- 

 claimed, was as positive as his own experimental knowledge of the physical 

 truths which he proclaims. He cannot show that physical truth is more 

 important than spiritual truth, nor that the scientific writers of our daj r are 

 more honest, more capable, more careful, or more thorough than the re- 

 ligious writers of the early Christian days. Let him not claim, then, even 

 by the faintest shadow of implication, that the prophets and evangelists 

 and apostles were less competent judges in their special field of experience, 

 than he is in his, or that their assertions are less trustworthy than his own. 



Biichner offers the following dilemma: "Either the laws of nature 

 rule, or the eternal reason rules; the two would be involved in conflict 

 eveiy moment ; the sway of the unchangeable laws of nature, a sway 

 which we cannot call a rule, would allow of no conflicting personal 

 interference."* The dilemma itself is well stated, but it is difficult 

 to see how any one who believes in "eternal reason" can accept 

 his solution. How can laws, having "a sway which we cannot call a 

 rule," rule anything? What are " laws " and " eternal reason ?" Before 

 Ave attempt to dogmatize, we should try to express our meaning so plainly 

 that it cannot be easily misunderstood. To the Christian philosopher, the 

 assertions that "the two would be involved in conflict every moment, " that 

 the laws of nature are unchangeable, and that their sway "would allow of 

 no conflicting personal interference," seem like mere gratuitous assump- 

 tions. 



The primitive meaning of law, as defined by Webster, is: "A rule, 

 particularly an established or permanent rule, prescribed by the supreme 

 power of a state to its subjects, for regulating their actions." Between 

 the laws of man and the highest human reason there is rarely any conflict. 

 No human laws are unchangeable, but the more reasonable they are the 

 less likely are they to be changed. If they were in accordance with eternal 

 reason what ground can any one have for thinking that " the two would be 

 involved in conflict every moment ?" 



The primitive and etymological meaning of nature, is "that which is 

 born or produced." By metonymy nature is taken to represent the pro- 

 ducer, and Darwin defends this use of the word in language which seems 

 to imply his undoubting belief that the producer is intelligent. Biichner 

 says: "Nature is a single totality sustained by an internal necessity."! 

 This definition might be interpreted to include "the eternal reason" as a 

 part of nature, but it seems likely from the terms of his dilemma, that he 

 agrees with most other German philosophers, in contrasting nature, as the 

 material world, with the world of intelligence. If such is his meaning, and 



* Cited by Kraut h. 

 flbid. 



