SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 23 



prove that Paul predicated his doctrine upon the 

 knowledge of these facts ? Milton's rehellious an- 

 gels in their warfare against the hosts of heaven may 

 not violate one rule of good English military tactics, 

 but that fact would hardly be counted sufficient 

 evidence for our accepting the rebellion as an actual 

 historical event. Indeed, when our theological 

 friends ask us to accept their dogmas on the ground 

 that they are no more unreasonable or inexplicable 

 than many things which we do believe, and which 

 all the world believes, they usually make the mis- 

 take of expecting us to award the same weight to 

 the argument from analogy that we do to proof from 

 experience. 



That a thing is mysterious or inexplicable affords 

 no grounds for our refusing to credit it. We can- 

 not explain the simplest facts of our lives ; we are 

 embosomed in mystery. We do not know how our 

 food nourishes us, or how our sleep refreshes us, 

 yet we know that they do nourish and refresh us, 

 and that is enough. What a mystery that an ugly 

 worm should become a gorgeous butterfly, or that 

 from a little insensate egg should come a bird with 

 all its powers of flight and song ! How wonderful 

 and inexplicable are the commonest facts and occur- 

 rences about us ! Tet we know that things do turn 

 out thus and thus and not otherwise, and we know 

 it not from reason but by experience. We know 

 that a man may survive the amputation of his arms 

 and legs, but do we know that he can survive the 

 amputation of his head ? A tree or a cabbage sur- 



