1 6 The Faculties of Faith and of Science. CHAP. 



they are spiritually discerned." 1 But a, writer 

 who is endeavouring to throw the light of science 

 on the things of faith ought not to quote such 

 a statement as "final," in the sense of finally 

 decisive of such a question, without inquiring in 

 what sense the words are used ; whether their most 

 obvious sense is their deepest sense; and whether 

 some meaning has not been read into them which 

 may not be their own. These words assert that 

 natural things and spiritual things are to be appre- 

 hended by different faculties ; but they say nothing 

 of the nature or source of those faculties. The 

 relation between them may, however, be thus illus- 

 trated : If a man totally ignorant of both mathe- 

 matical and experimental methods, were for the first 

 time told of the most remarkable results of science, 

 such as the motion of the earth, the theory of 

 luminous undulations, or the perhaps yet more won- 

 derful discovery of the atomic constitution of matter, 

 he would probably reply : " Not only I see no 

 evidence for the truth of this, but I cannot imagine 

 any such evidence to exist." To which the answer 

 would be, " Certainly you do not and cannot see it. 

 Before you can see it, you must acquire what will 

 be in effect new faculties. The merely perceptive 

 intellect receives not the things of science, neither 

 can it know them, because they are scientifically 

 discerned." Now, as the scientific faculty is a de- 

 velopment of the ordinary understanding, so is the 

 1 1 Cor. ii. 14. 



