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says Cosmas, should not "even speak of the Antipodes." But why travel to 

 remote ages and barbarous times for examples of these ludicrous attempts to 

 control the course of scientific thought 1 We ourselves are witnesses that the 

 same spirit has survived to our own days, and is yet active in the midst of us. 

 We have seen, and still see, the conclusions of the Naturalist contested, not on 

 the ground that they are unwarranted by observation, but because to the 

 objector they seem to contradict some supposed Revelation on the subject 

 contained in Scripture. Now I desire to assert on the threshold of our 

 inquiry that, in regard to the constitution of the physical world, Theology 

 must be content to sit at the feet of her younger sister Science. Scientific 

 inference is to be supported and opposed purely on scientific grounds. But 

 more especially in the department of Natural Theology it is obvious we must 

 take our facts from Natural Science ; making of them what we can. 



But, as physical science is progressive, the illustrations drawn from nature of 

 the theistic arguments must needs adapt themselves to this advance, and theory 

 after theory be shown to be consistent with what is fundamental in human 

 faith. I cannot therefore see that Dr. Hooker was justified in one charge 

 which he made last year against this department of Theology. In his opening 

 address, as President for the year, to the British Association, he makes it a 

 reproach, that Natural Theology " shifts its ground to meet the requirements 

 of every new fact that science establishes." Now in one sense, no doubt, it 

 does, and ought, to " shift its ground." Essentially it is occupied in showing 

 that each new fact, and each successive theory, consists with, though it may 

 not prove, the fundamental point of Natural Religion. Its assumption of 

 scientific conclusions is of necessity, provisional only ; for these conclusions, 

 in their very nature, are never final, Science it is rightly said, knows nothing 

 of Confessions, Creeds, and Articles. With her nothing is permanent, except 

 the guiding principles of her research. At each step upward a wider prospect 

 opens out upon her ; and the theories of the past expand into more compre- 

 hensive views of truth. Theology is bound to follow with her comment 

 this continuous advance. Plainly, there is confusion in Dr. Hooker's mind 

 between Natural Theology and those ill-judged efforts, of which we have seen 

 so many to reconcile the facts of Science with the letter of Scripture by per- 

 verting the interpretation of both the subjects of comparison. 



The earliest speculations upon the physical forces of the Universe seem to 

 have arisen out of religious feeling — -thereby understanding simply, the human 

 sense of dependence on an irresistible external power. The might of the 

 elements, contrasted with the sense of feebleness within, attracts an awe-struck 

 worship ; giving rise to those naturalistic systems of Religion which we find to 

 have prevailed in the ancient civilized communities of Asia. In these systems 

 every operation of nature is attributed to a supernatural influence. The 

 elementary powers, and the more striking phenomena of the physical world, 

 are impersonated and deified. In the earliest known form of the religion of 

 India, fire, the winds, the sun, the dawn, the bright and cloudless firmament, 

 are venerated as gods. But as there arises some conception of natural law, 

 the notion of Divine interference becomes more and more restricted to the less 

 frequent and apparently irregular phenomena ; more especially to such as are 

 of an appalling or destructive character. Pestilence, drought, earthquakes, 

 hurricanes, are regarded as Divine visitations, long after men have ceased to 

 worship the sun and stars. Eclipses, comets, and meteors, also, from their 

 apparently irregular occurrence, and startling effect upon the senses, are placed 

 in the same class, and taken for portents of the Divine anger. But in the 

 progress of the adventurous European races, the bold and lively sons of Japhet 

 have more and more asserted man's mental rights and bodily powers against 

 external nature. Growing familiar with the regularity of all her ways, and 



