Inaugural Address. 25 



denied the personal agency of One Universal First Cause. The 

 fallacious reasonings relating to the Laws of Nature must event- 

 ually give way to a better system of interpretation than now 

 widely prevails; for even the author of the " Vestiges of Creation" 

 admits that they are but " the mode of action of the ever present 

 and sustaining Gfod," and one day, we need not doubt, these laws 

 will be understood as the expression of His will. 



In adopting these views, and in expressing these opinions, there 

 is no intention to ignore the minutest facts that are brought for- 

 ward by observers, nor the significancy of the testimonies that 

 are being daily disentombed from the sepulchral archives of Time 

 and Nature. The question is not of the existence of phenomena, 

 such as those for instance which are made to bear on the epoch 

 of man's appearance on the earth, but of the application of them. 

 Nor is there objection to the statement of arguments relating to 

 the Origin of Species, or the observations on which these argu- 

 ments are based. Yet we ought not to be accused of nervousness 

 as to the fate of Scripture, if we would wait for further evidences 

 or for wider ranges of experiment. It may serve to express more 

 clearly what is intended by these remarks, if we refer to the 

 striking words of the present Dean of Canterbury : — " Nor has 

 the Bible any reason to fear the utmost activity and the furthest 

 extension of such pursuits. We have been, I am persuaded, too 

 timid and anxious in this mattter. Let research and inquiry be 

 carried forward in every direction and in a fearless spirit : and 

 when their results are most completely established and firmly 

 assured to us, then will it most undeniably be found, that Creation, 

 Providence, and Revelation are the work of the same G-od :— then 

 will the plainest light be thrown on the meaning of Holy Scrip- 

 ture, on all points on which such research and inquiry bear." 



Should we meet with difficulties in such inquiry, let us remember 

 the words of the great English reasoner, Bishop Butler, who 

 urges that " he who believes the Scriptures to have proceeded 

 from Him who is the Author of Nature, may well expect to find 

 the same sort of difficulties in them as are found in the constitution 

 of Nature." 



If from these testimonies of logical theologians we turn once 

 more to that of the Historian of Mental Philosophy, we shall be 

 reminded that the state of Philosophy is very much akin in one 



D 



