232 ESS.-lYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



to be known and verified ? The unevasive answer to 

 this must be, either (i) that our human intelHgent 

 power, our deep interior reason, already possesses 

 such a knowledge of divine things, of God's own 

 nature, that when our reason reveals itself, through 

 the depths of experience, we can discern by it in 

 the internal character of given utterances their 

 divine origin and authority ; or else (2) that the 

 presence and speech of God can be known directly 

 by the evidence of the senses — that a man may 

 see with his eyes, and hear with his ears, things and 

 sounds that are immediate proofs, not inferential 

 implications, of the presence of God then and there, 

 and of his word then and there spoken. Now, the 

 former alternative, that of Internal Evidence, in 

 order to vindicate the claim of authority has to 

 appeal to the revelation of God in reason, and this 

 is a plain contradiction. The second alternative, 

 that of External Evidence, appeals to the testimony 

 of the senses for the proof of supersensible reality ; 

 and this is a balder contradiction. 



In the case of the Old Doctrine of the relation 

 between religion and reason, the Method of Authority 

 involves the further inconsistency of having to appeal, 

 in order to verify the presence and word of the Most 

 High, to the very reason rebuked for raising its earth- 

 centred eye to things celestial ; for this appeal is 

 made, when belief is demanded upon tokens which tlie 



