372 
I hardly think that Professor Stubbs meant that as a matter to be proud of. 
Then, in the 13th paragraph of the paper, we are told : 
“Ancient philosophy found its highest realization in the doctrines of 
Plato, and they have been found incapable of regenerating the world. 
But I deny that position altogether. Plato was a dreamer, and at Alex- 
andria the neo-Platonists were considerably tinged with Christianity. How- 
ever much they diverged from Plato, they owed their spirit to him, and that 
spirit was based upon an ideal existing in the upper world of which all bodies 
in this world got some share. I should say that the highest realization o 
ancient philosophy would be found in Aristotle, who adopted the scientific 
method, in going by the processes of induction, instead of by those of deduc- 
tion. He wanted to do as Bacon did— to make a great national history , 
and to lead us up from particulars to generals, instead of going by the other 
way, and that is the same spirit which now pervades modern science, with 
all the benefits which it has conferred upon us. I come now to the real 
difficulty of the paper, where I cannot feel that it lias quite given us a solu 
tion. Professor Lias says, in his 13th paragraph : 
“ Heathendom has, at best, produced but the stagnation of the whole 
and the wretchedness of the many ; at its worst it has produced vice m i s 
most hideous aspects, and misery in its saddest and most degrading orins , 
whereas Christianity has never for a moment faltered in its onward advance, 
from the moment when it assumed the control ol man s destinies o ie 
present time— a period of eighteen centuries— it has never ceased to produce 
a steady progress in everything which tended to the true welfare ot man. 
Now that is a strong statement. Christ came when the Roman Empire was 
on the wane and fast breaking up. So far from Christianity tending to stop 
its decay, it did nothing of the sort. I will not say that it tended to hasten 
it, though I have no doubt that it was one of the many elements which 
hastened the break-up of politics and of society, but I want to know why it 
did not cure it. The Romans were a people who had shown great nobility 
of character and great capacity for good, and many of them, who had adopted 
the Stoic doctrines, were people ot whom Christianity might hav e been 
proud. I want to know why Christianity did not stop the state ot corrup- 
tion which was going on and put things right again* One answer to that 
may be that Christianity, for some reason or other, adopted a spirit of enmity 
to all knowledge. We find bishops and fathers of the Church decrying 
knowledge as Pagan, and as leading to doubt and infidelity, and we find 
St. Augustine saying that it is an immoral thing to suppose that there could 
be any antipodes, because the people who lived there could not see Christ 
when He came down to the judgment, for the earth would be between Him 
* It was not generally adopted : and even whore adopted, it was too 
often rather in the spirit of Paganism, instead of that of true Christianity. 
--Em 
