340 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 



which is infinitely knowable, hut which is symbolical only of the 

 Absolute Keality which lies behind phenomena, and of which the 

 human mind can take no direct cognizance. This region of the 

 Absolute — this substantial Keality underlying both sense-percep- 

 tion and consciousness, is the Spencerian Unknowable. Spencer 

 may, as Mr. Chadwick assumes, have unconsciously appropriated 

 some of the metaphysics of Mansel and Hamilton; but if we accept 

 a psychological foundation even more realistic than his, which I 

 am inclined to do, I do not see how we can get entirely rid of an 

 Unknowable Keality. Take the lowest organisms, for example, 

 with a single, vague, undifferentiated sense of feeling or apprehen- 

 sion of external reality. They are manifestly shut out from a vast 

 field of knowledge which is possible to us. To them, this is a part 

 of the Unknowable. Man is limited to five senses — five avenues 

 of approach toward the external world. Each of these senses is 

 limited in its scope or range. Must we not, therefore, admit that 

 there is an External Reality — knowable perhaps per se, but un- 

 knowable to man because of the limitations of his sense-percep- 

 tions? The recognition of this fact seems to be forced upon us 

 by science itself, and its acknowledgment appears to me to be an 

 essentially religious act of the mind. 



Mr. Chadwick: — 



I have no time, at this hour, to follow Dr. Janes into the dis- 

 tinctions between the unknown and the unknowable, in which I 

 think he may have taken valid ground. Spencer's later writings 

 have been inconsistent with the disreputable compromise between 

 science and religion which he proposed in his "First Principles." 

 I could not altogether agree with Professor Allen as to the im- 

 morality of Mahometanism. At the time of its origin it was an 

 improvement upon the Christianity of the East, and in competition 

 with that Christianity it has steadily prevailed. Nor can I accept 

 his distinction of moral and immoral religions, in the broad sense 

 in which he drew it. Immorality is an incident of all religions, 

 even of Christianity. This church has had the reputation of 

 being heretical, but I am glad to say that the worst heresy ever 

 uttered here lias come from a Presbyterian professor ! Christianity 

 not an evolution from Judaism ! Why, we have Jesus' own word 

 for it that it was : "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." In- 

 deed, it seems to me that the Jews of our time, the more liberal 

 of them, are nearer to the religion of Jesus than are the popular 

 forms of Christianity. 



