124 REV. C. GODFREY ASHWIN, M.A. 
governed, and an application of her treasury to the enrich- 
ment of human life, with comforts, luxuries, and information 
of which poets may have dreamed, but our predecessors 
formed no conception. 
And many nervous minds are trembling lest the discoveries 
of modern science, or rather the more accurate observations 
of modern scientists, should overturn the conclusions our fore- 
fathers had arrived at from their more limited observations of 
the physical universe. ‘This is the subject of the present 
paper. How far do the demonstrations of science justify 
scepticism ? Are the conclusions of modern scientists in the 
direction of Agnosticism or Theism? Do they modify the 
deductions of what we understand as Natural Theology? 
Natural Theology,—for Revealed Religion occupies an alto- 
gether different platform, and as far as our present subject is 
concerned, we have nothing to do with the Bible. 
But Natural Theology is a very wide subject, and embraces 
two distinct lines of thought,—physical and metaphysical,— 
the latter of these will be considered of primary importance 
by those who think that ‘the proper study of mankind 
is man,” and the natural yearnings of the spirit of man for a 
knowledge of the Father of spirits can best be sought in the 
history and constitution of the human mind; the former by those 
who think a knowledge of the mysteries of the physical world 
is best calculated to reveal The Secret that underlies all things. 
To the first class the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of 
man’s mental and moral nature must appear the most 
promising and hopeful field of investigation ; and John Stuart 
Mill and Herbert Spencer, and writers of that kind, will be 
regarded as the great authorities from whom they may hope 
to derive the light they seek. Respecting this branch of the 
subject, notwithstanding the common protestation against 
anything like anthropomorphic views of the Creator, sup- 
posing the universe to be a creation, it seems impossible for 
the human mind to form any conception of the Divine Being 
that is not anthropomorphic. For it is impossible for beings 
possessing any consciousness of intelligence, will, purpose, 
and power, to conceive the universe to have been formed, 
organised, and governed by a Being who does not possess, 
in an unlimited degree, those attributes which distinguish, 
though in a limited degree, man from all other beings with 
which he is acquainted. That is, he cannot but endow the 
God of his imagination with anthropomorphic qualities. 
Mr. Frederic Harrison, the Positivist leader, says :—‘‘I say, 
in a word, unless religion is to be anthropomorphic there can 
be no working religion at all !”” 
