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so much as they were propositions. But if we go to the axiomatic truths of 
mathematics, we find that many of them are merely propositions, but are 
regarded as axioms because they approve themselves to the mind as 
truths, or because they are incapable of further proof. A good instance 
of the latter class is the famous 12th axiom of Euclid, which is confessedly 
a proposition, and requires demonstrating as much as any other proposi- 
tion. We find that the intellect of man, as far as it has been engaged on 
this subject, has failed to get a science of geometry which can rest only on 
axioms ; and, therefore, those things which theology would take as the axioms 
of theology are not more faulty, after all, than some of the axioms on which 
you have to base the science of geometry. But when you get a little further 
in mathematics and take up your algebraical methods, you are obliged to 
assume certain things as axioms, which appear to the uninitiated intellect 
as hard to conceive as any of the mysteries revealed in the Bible. 
Take the well-known instance that “something divided by nothing is 
infinity,” “ nothing multiplied by nothing is still nothing,” while “ nothing 
divided by nothing may be anything.” Those are matters which the meta 
physician never can satisfactorily explain ; they are altogether beyond man’s 
comprehension. Students of the differential and integral calculus know that 
those are but small difficulties compared with others which they meet with in 
that part of mathematical science. If we turn from the purely demonstrative 
mathematical sciences to the applied ones, what basis have you for the 
axioms on which dynamics and mechanics are based ? The three laws of 
motion are the practical axioms of dynamical science. Not one of these laws 
can be demonstrated by any experiment, or series of experiments. They are 
deduced from a vast number of facts, from each of which some particular 
cause of the failure of the law has to be deducted. And what, after all, is 
the final proof of the truth of these laws without which the problems of pure 
mathematical science cannot be applied to dynamical science ? Why, the 
correspondence of the observed places of the moon and planets with those 
calculated on the assumption of the truth of these laws combined with the 
theory of gravitation ! I believe most fully that you can even from the 
Bible itself, and without going to scholastic theology, take your stand on 
this, that there is a scientific theology in the Word of God. If there be a 
weak point in Mr. De La Mare’s paper (and it is not unnatural that there 
should be one), I think it has been in some of those analogies which drew 
such severe comments from Mr. Warington. But though I believe that some 
of the illustrations may have been faulty, yet the essential idea is true in 
itself. I do believe that the visible things in God’s creation do manifest and 
set forth by types and shadows the deep truths of the invisible world. It is, 
I believe, a very common thought among theologians, and it is one which 
you will find illustrated by our Saviour’s method of teaching. Whenever 
our Lord wished to convey to the human intellect a knowledge of the deepest 
spiritual truths, He took His examples from the works of God’s own creation, 
taking, for instance, the seeds sown in the ground as a type and emblem of 
the word of God, and its effect upon the human heart. How did St. Paul 
