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the physical ones by which stars revolve in their orbits, and 
elements arrange themselves into their various compounds. 
Yet however much of Christianity may be capable of 
“ verification/’’ — and I believe that far more of it is so 
than is generally believed, — still to assume that a revelation 
is impossible ; that nothing is to be accepted as true but 
what is capable of scientific demonstration, that is, what has 
become practically certain by induction from a sufficient 
number of carefully ascertained facts, — is an assumption of 
the very gravest kind. We may believe, if we please, but we 
cannot possibly know, that man has no faculties beyond his 
reason for comprehending the unseen. We can have no cer- 
tainty whatever that it is impossible for God to reveal Himself, 
apart from all argument, all logical demonstration, all evidence 
of visible facts, to the man who will purify his soul by the 
discipline of walking by the light he has, so as to become fit 
for the reception of more.* 
1 1 . Another very strong point with Mr. Arnold is that the 
language of the Bible is not precise or scientific in its 
character, but fluid, literary, indefinite. (Preface, p. xv.) 
There may be some truth in this statement, but it cannot be 
received without great caution. That all the terms in the New 
Testament were as strictly and rigidly defined as is necessary in 
a philosophical investigation, is more than we have a right to 
assert ; but we have no right whatever to rush to the opposite 
extreme, and declare that they are loose and inaccurate. 
The writers of the New Testament must have been singu- 
larly unfit for their high mission, if they expressed wliat 
they had to say in any terms but those capable of being 
intelligently understood by those whom they addressed. f 
It is scarcely conceivable that the greatest intellectual triumph 
the world has known, the triumph of Christianity over the 
forces arrayed against it, could have been effected by a collec- 
* See St. Paul, Epist. to Corinthians, ch. ii., where he insists on the ex- 
istence of a spiritual faculty by which truths of the spiritual order were 
tested and examined (for this is the usual meaning of the Greek word he 
there employs) . 
t Aristotle (Ethics, Book I., ch. ii. ; Book II., ch. ii.) says that terms 
ought to be defined with as much exactness as the circumstances require. 
The circumstances in this case demanded as much definition as may be 
sufficient in order that they may become a basis of action, i.e., sufficient to 
enable men to comprehend their general drift and bearing. A closer defini- 
tion may be necessary before they can safely he assumed as postulates for 
argument. In the above-cited passage Aristotle expressly asserts that less 
rigid accuracy in definition is necessary for practical purposes than for theo- 
retical researches. 
