IN COKEOBOEATION OF PKOFESSOE HUXLEY 89 



the Gospels, that Jesus said what he is reported to 

 have said, that demonology is true, etc. ? 



Professor Huxley, I imagine, would be the last 

 man in the world to deny Dr. Abbbtt's proposition 

 that there is such a thing as spiritual insight, or the 

 religious sense, and that certainties, or at least assur- 

 ances and satisfaction, reach the soul through these 

 avenues. The religious nature or the poetic and 

 artistic nature is not occupied with logical processes 

 or the reasons of things, but with impressions, at- 

 tractions, intuitions, emotional processes, the divine, 

 the beautiful, the enjoyable. We do not ask of a 

 poem, or a work of art, or any work of pure litera- 

 ture. Is it true ? as we would ask of a proposition 

 of science, or the statement of a witness upon the 

 stand, or the declaration of a creed. Is it true ? 

 but, Is it good ? is it powerful ? is it satisfying ? 

 does it move and nourish us ? A poem must have 

 poetic truth, but how different is this from mathe- 

 matical or scientific truth, and by what different 

 faculties apprehended ! Neither do we ask of purely 

 religious utterances like the Sermon on the Mount 

 or Paul's Epistles, Are they true ? but. Do they 

 stimulate and exalt our religious sense ? do they 

 quicken and purify the spirit ? Paul's theology may 

 be true or false : what is forever true and real is his 

 fervid piety, his spiritual power, his eloquent humil- 

 ity, and his love for mankind. His logical faculties 

 may have been weak ; the things which he believed, 

 which lay in his understanding and satisfied his 

 reason, may have been utterly inadequate to stand 



