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THE AMERICAN-SC AN DIN AVI AN REVIEW 
virtue that would be impossible to Christianity, but Christianity pro¬ 
duces wonders which philosophy can not emulate.” 
Christianity does not break dow n the limitations ol personality, 
but within those limitations it is the divine “Ephphatha,” the mighty 
*‘Be opened” to all in which the creative power ot God is revealed, in 
nature as in history. A purifying fountain to the imagination of the 
poet and the conception of the artist, it also opens the eye to the glories 
of empirical research. 
We have all heard the axiom which has been repeated round 
about us to the point of banality: Scholarly research, more especially 
in the natural sciences, overthrows the fundamental truths of the 
Christian faith, and regards it as nothing but the expression of the 
ideas of past ages. Does not a more mature reflection show us the 
fallacy of such an assertion? One of the greatest pioneers in the 
realm of natural science (Newton) in the evening of his life said 
humbly that he had been as a child playing by the seashore; some¬ 
times he would find a prettier pebble or a lovelier shell than his play¬ 
mates, but the illimitable ocean of truth lay unexplored before him. 
Men are proud of their knowledge, but what do they know ? We may 
trace the course of the stars or dissect a human brain, but can we 
plumb the abysses of space or explore the silent ways of human 
thought? “Our knowledge is infinitesimal, our ignorance immeas¬ 
urable,” says Laplace. 
Natural science concerns itself with the laws and processes of 
physical life on earth, but what right has it to build a theory of human 
life on the physical alone, when life itself, more especially in its high¬ 
est forms, reveals a multiplicity of spiritual forces? How can the 
science which reverences experience deny that which is brought home 
to us every hour, the fact that from the long chain in which the laws 
of cause and effect are the links, we are led back to the original sources 
of self-determination! The mysterious reality of the will, uncon¬ 
querable but not insensible to outer influences; the never-ending 
struggle of good and evil within us; conscience which works upon us 
and yet leaves us free to act on our own responsibility; the high ideal 
which haunts us and shows us the difference between what we ought 
to be and what we are; the humiliating sense of having sinned against 
one who is purer than we; the spontaneous longing to carry the joys 
and sorrows of our hearts to one whose power is greater than ours— 
all these are facts of experience which can not be denied except on the 
supposition that our entire spiritual life were one great self-deception. 
People say to us: “But do you not see that the leading men in 
our civilization are liberating themselves from the Christian faith?” 
And they point to a few great names in science and politics. Does 
this really prove anything? Need we call attention to so obvious a 
fact as that we can easily produce from our own time or from past 
