DIFFICULTIES OF BELIEF. 



185 



we believe it to be true, but also because we have found in it the satis- 

 faction of all the deepest needs of our spiritual nature. It is the 

 greatest of our treasures. And just as a man will fight for his daily 

 bread so a Christian will contend for his faith. He has found it so 

 good that he must struggle to hold it fast when an effort is made to 

 take it from him. 



I must confess that I disagree considerably with Sir Robert 

 Anderson. Christ says " I am the light of the world." He says " I 

 am the way, the truth, and the life." He does not say "A book 

 which shall be written is to be the light of the world, the way, the 

 truth, and the life." The supreme value of the Bible is to be found 

 in its witness to Christ. 



Communication from Eev. A. Irving, D.Sc, B.A. — 

 While appreciating very warmly the excellent paper of the 

 Bishop of Down on "Difficulties of Belief," and as one who for 

 more than half a lifetime has given his best thoughts to the subject, 

 I crave permission to offer a little friendly criticism on several 

 points, on which I think the argument of the paper might l^e 

 strengthened — 



1. There seems to me a certain weakness in Dr. D'Arcy's remarks 

 about what he calls the " scientific creed " and " thinking in water- 

 tight compartments." They suggest the unsatisfactory position of 

 those people who have a " mere reading acquaintance with science," 

 as Professor Michael Foster, F.R.S., put it in his Presidential 

 Address to the British Association at Dover, in 1899. To think in 

 watertight compartments seems to me to set up a barrier to any 

 advance towards the establishment of those harmonious relations 

 between the scientific Geist and the theological Geist^ which are 

 essential to the working out of a Christian Philosophy, such as 

 Dr. Arnold Whateley has contended for {Transactions of the Vidoria 

 Institute, vol. xliii) — a philosophy which shall include in one 

 perspective the truths of Nature and the truths of Revelation. 



2. " Pragmatism does not deny the validity of Science," writes 

 Dr. D'Arcy (p. 167). It would talk nonsense if it did so. But 

 surely Faith (which is wider in its scope than the mere intellectual 

 process of " belief") has its pragmatic value. 



3. Not having seen the recent articles in the Hihhert Journal, to 

 which the Bishop refers, I may say that two j^ears ago I suggested 

 an affirmative answer to that question, — " Is there one Science of 



