186 



DIFFICULTIES OF BELIEF. 



Nature ? " — the possible answer being found in the full recognition 

 of the Divine Immanence, as the consistent and persistent (though 

 not of necessity rigidly uniform) expression of Transcendent 

 Creative Thought and Will"^ ; and the able paper by Dr. D'Arcy, 

 supplemented by Bergson's Creative Evolution, lends strong support 

 to the contention that any complete theory of Evolution must 

 "include the immanence of Divine power." 



4. The " revolt against mechanism " in recent years, and its 

 necessary challenge to the mechanistic (so-called) philosophy of the 

 Herbert Spencer school, following upon the re- affirmation of the 

 reality of the spiritual side of existence, and the reference in that 

 connexion to Henri Bergson, is upon the whole well considered. 

 But one feels a sort of twinge at the phrase "the re-discovery of the 

 soul." There is no "re-discovery" in our later advance, except to 

 those Avhose acquaintance with science has been mainly formed from 

 the superficial magazine literature of the last two or three decades, 

 which too often displays a conceited unconsciousness of the 

 limitations of science. 



5. In the second part of his paper Dr. D'Arcy deals with the 

 difficulties of belief which arise from modern criticisra. Here he 

 seems thoroughly at home. As the author leads on to the ineffable 

 Personality of Jesus of Nazareth he reminds one of Archbishop 

 Temple's Bampton Lectures (1884) — 



"In the midst of present conflicts, in the war of opinion, and 

 amid the fires of criticism, let us ever bear in mind the fact that 

 Christianity is much more a living and life-giving principle than a 

 theological system j that it is not so much a philosophy as loyaltrj to 

 a life, as that life was manifested in the Son of God." 



* See my paper on "Light, Luraiuaries and Life," Trans. Vict. Inst., 

 vol. xlii. 



