398 
is more than a string of texts, even though they he selected 
to bear on one point. 
In treating this subject, I must be permitted to glance 
back at past history, and in a few sentences to recall to 
your minds some of the broader features of the progress of 
thought. 
We know little of the science of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, 
or Chinese, before the Christian era ; but the works of many 
Greek philosophers have been handed down to us, so that we 
Can form a good opinion of the way of thinking of the master- 
minds of that nation. While we stand awestruck before these 
mighty intellects, we are still amazed (perhaps amused) to see 
what a prodigious edifice of theory they could build on a small 
and often shaky foundation of fact, and how it was mental 
conceptions and not natural phenomena that formed the 
materials of their arguments. In the mean time the Jewish 
prophets, though generally exhibiting a loving admiration of 
nature, scarcely attempted to trace secondary causes. After- 
wards there arose in that nation a series of commentators, 
who spun out a wondrous web of divinity and ethics, by as 
faulty a system of deduction • from narrow premises as ever 
spoilt the philosophy of a Grecian sage. The fathers of the 
Christian Church were not much affected by these Rabbinical 
fancies, but Greek speculation had a more potent influence ; 
and it is little to be wondered at that such mighty spirits as 
Plato and Aristotle cast a spell over the minds alike of the 
theologian and natural philosopher; and presently we find all 
parties bowing implicitly before the authority of the Stagirite. 
***** 
But from the gloom of the middle ages a better philosophy 
began to dawn, and reformers arose both in the schools and 
the Church : they began to recognize a higher authority, and 
to allow the ideas of the Divine Mind/' whether in Nature or 
Revelation, to overthrow the idols of the human mind." At 
length Bacon, with his “ new engine," demolished the 
structures of the Aristotelians ; and on a more careful inductive 
basis the temple of modern science has been erected. 
***** 
Thus, while the mediaeval natural philosophy is only known 
by its fossil remains, the huge saurians, the pterodactyls, or the 
mammoths of former theological epochs still walk the earth; 
or, to return to the old figure, I am sure that each of my 
hearers, whatever his own religious views may be, will readily 
acknowledge that while the rubbish of astrologers and alche- 
