318 THE YEN. ARCHDEACOX POTT EE, M.A.^ OX THE IXFLUEXCE 



far the unsettling of old beliefs tends to destroy religion; It 

 is true, no doubt, that much real piety has been built up on 

 doctrines which are scientifically indefensible. But the destruc- 

 tion of these doctrines will not injure religion so far as it is 

 real, e.g., a man brought up to believe in eternal punishment 

 for the individual who has not lived well on earth may be con- 

 strained to an unreal kind of religion through fear of conse- 

 quences; and when he understands that eternal punishment 

 for the individual is not believed by later teachers, he may 

 relapse into worldliness. But if he does he only proves that 

 his religion was not religion, but only an outward semblance of 

 it, and is of no value to man's higher nature. True religion 

 does not live on fear. Or again, if you tell men that God did 

 not write with his own finger on tables of stone, but that Moses 

 taught legal and moial truths which were known in less noble 

 forms long before his time, it will not make the really religious 

 man less religious nor the law of moral obligation less binding, 

 but rather more so. 



But one g-reat boon comes from the mvesti nation of these 

 questions — it prepares the world for views which must come 

 home before long, by which men may be led away from true 

 religion. 



Is it not better that those who are firmly convinced of the 

 truth of religion should examine into scientific questions, and 

 show how, though these alter the shell, they do not touch the 

 kernel of vital truth, than that the investigators should be men 

 of no belief, who use theii' science to destroy faith ? 



Discrssiox. 



Mrs. Walter Mauxder said : I have asked permission to speak 

 because the private scientific work on which I have been engaged 

 for the last eight or ten years has led me into the same field of 

 enquiry as that covered by Archdeacon Potter's paper. My work 

 of course had no theological purpose but the purely scientific one of 

 comparing and so dating the astronomical conceptions of various 

 ancient peoples. But in the course of this work, I could not fail to 

 take account of how strong an influence Babylonia had on the 

 surrounding nations ; on the Jews among others. 



What is the true scientific method of conducting an inquiry into 



