50 
generations of mankind ; its fitness to satisfy the wants and 
console the sufferings of human nature ; the character of those 
by whom it was first promulgated and received ; the sufferings 
which attested the sincerity of their convictions; the com- 
parative trustworthiness of ancient testimony and modern 
conjecture ; the mutual contradictions of conflicting theories of 
unbelief, and the inadequacy of all of them to explain the facts 
for which they are bound to account / 5 [Limits of Religious 
Thought, p. 173.) 
9. It would be interesting to know how many of those 
who ignore Revelation, or who undertake to pronounce Chris- 
tianity a mere fable, have carefully, patiently, and candidly 
weighed all the matters here enumerated by Dean Mansel, 
before coming to the conclusion that Christ's teaching, and 
the teaching of the Bible about Him, is certainly untrue. I 
say “ certainly untrue," because nothing short of absolute 
certainty could exempt from guilt the men who are persistently 
endeavouring to persuade mankind that the God in whom 
Christians believe does not exist. On the other hand, to look 
upon this as absolutely certain is to look upon themselves as 
infinitely better judges than the many equally renowned men 
who believe and have believed in a God that has vouchsafed 
to reveal Himself to man — an estimate of their intellectual 
powers and superior knowledge which will scarcely be en- 
dorsed beyond their own circle, however great those powers 
and that knowledge may be admitted to be. 
10. But to return to our immediate subject. The argument 
against an intelligent personal Creator of the universe which 
seemed to be supplied by the extension of the principle of 
conservation of vis viva to the more general one of conserva- 
tion of energy, may be supposed to assume some such shape 
as this , — vis viva, considered as mechanical, that is to say, as 
belonging to molar motion, may be lost. Two bodies devoid 
of elasticity, coming together by virtue of their mutual attrac- 
tions, are both deprived of sensible motion provided their 
masses are equal. Until comparatively lately it was supposed 
that in such a case the motion was entirely lost, and therefore 
a force banished from the universe. And if a force can cease 
to exist, there is no reason why a new force might not be 
originated, as was formerly supposed to be the case when a 
limb was put in motion by an exercise of the will. But it is 
now found that the motion extinguished in the collision of two 
equal non -elastic masses survives in the heat which immediately 
pervades them, and which is caused by, or rather consists in, 
a rapid motion of their molecules. And the connection of this 
molecular motion with the previous molar motion is brought 
