234 THE REV. A. R. WHATELY^ M.A._, ON 



— however sure as historical conchisions — which depend on 

 inductive study ? Does that not dislocate this neat structure of 

 unified truth, resting ultimately on direct experience, for which 

 I have pleaded ? 



If there were the necessary time at our disposal I should he 

 prepared to deal somewhat fully with this question. There are 

 certain things to be said about it wdiich, I think, remove the 

 difficulty so far as it can be called an objection. And we need 

 to face it, because it is used, and logically so, not only against 

 Christian Philosophy but against Christianity. It is really one 

 form of the fallacious assumption, which I have criticized before 

 this Society on a previous occasion, that the eternal cannot enter 

 time-conditions. 



Here I would simply say that, in the form in which I have 

 brought it forward to-day, it is, to my mind, a question which 

 we must each settle for ourselves. The historical and critical 

 liabilities of the Gospel are of much wider range in the opinion of 

 some than in that of others : we dispute about " the seat of author- 

 ity in religion." But however this may be, the man who has 

 personal experience of access to God through Christ has actual 

 empirical evidence of the truth of his faith which he can set 

 against empirical difficulties raised by his studies. He is so far 

 not hit by the objection, so often pressed, that inductive research 

 is not to be prejudiced by mere a ijriori considerations. The 

 faith of the devout Christian does not rest upon a mere a priori 

 but upon experience. Evidence for evidence. 



And when we have added that, if he is a thinker also, his 

 experience is the germ of a new view of self and life and the 

 universe, we have gone far to reconcile the elements of empiricism 

 with those of a jrriori in the Christian creed. 



In conclusion, one thing stands out when we view the subject 

 as I have viewed it throughout this paper. Christian Philosophy, 

 though it may be Metaphysics, is not speculation. It is the 

 effort of certain minds to adjust themselves to the larger 

 reality that looms around them, to save the very coherence of 

 thought, to give to their faith the mastery of a mass of material, 

 otherwise ahen, instead of leaving it to be overwhelmed. " This 

 is the victory tliat overcometh the w^orld" — the world of rival 

 thought as well as the world of rival pleasures and ambitions — 

 " even our faith." Yet, if our Philosophy is truly Christian, it does 

 not claim the exclusive privilege of a true ground of assurance. 

 For it appeals to the same ultimate criterion as the faith of the 

 simplest believer, the response of God Himself to the soul that 

 diligently seeks Him. 



