SCIENCE THE FINAL ARBITER. 279 



merely natural theologian, the existence of ugly and 

 noxious creatures, whose purpose is destructive of the 

 beauty and well-being of the rest of the animal king- 

 dom, is fatal to the discovery d posteriori of a single 

 infinitely wise, good, and powerful God, after the 

 manner of a scientific problem. And, accordingly, the 

 outcome of natural theologies has hitherto been a 

 plurality of gods, not infinitely powerful, and at war 

 with one another; or else blank Atheism, which 

 escapes inconsistency by abolishing all plan and all 

 creation whatever. Theologians and preachers of 

 revealed religion, who think to excogitate the nature 

 and attributes of God by their own reason and from 

 the evidence furnished by science, may with profit 

 take warning from the grim irony of Hackel,* and go 

 back to what God has revealed of Himself, as the sole 

 source of all our knowledge of His nature. 



For myself, I am content to believe in no God, 

 angel, or spirit, or the immortal soul of man, except as 

 made known to us through the miraculous specific 

 revelation contained in our Scriptures. At the same 

 time, these beings are of a nature to us wholly incom- 

 prehensible and inconceivable. The cardinal doctrines 

 of revealed religion are thus dogmas, not resting on 

 any proofs derived from observation or science at all.f 

 These dogmas are also mysteries, not only incapable of 

 scientific proof or disproof, but also above and beyond 

 the comprehension of the human intellect. Are we, 



* " The priests say, ' Q-od created man in his image.' It should 

 rather be ' Man creates God in his image,' or as the poet expresses 

 it, ' man paints himself in his Gods' " ( Gen. Morph.," i. p. 174). 



t In the language of the man of genius and statesman, Mr. 

 Disraeli, "Where knowledge ends religion begins." 



