LECTURE I. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE. THE subject which I have undertaken to consider in these lectures, not without a painful sense of my own incompetency for the task, is the oldest, the most comprehensive, and the most important, that has ever tasked the human faculties. Upon the answers to the great questions that are involved in it depend all our knowledge, all our duties, and all our hopes. In no age of the world, of which we have any clear and trustworthy record, in no condition of the human race, save that of the lowest forms of barbarism, have these questions ceased to occupy, in a greater or less degree, the attention of man, and to influence his conduct. In one point of view, they may be said to require the most profound learning and the largest scope of intellectual ability in him who would consider and discuss them to advantage; in another aspect, they seem to come within the sphere of the narrowest intellect, and to offer the plainest and most practical considerations to every member of the human family. And herein lies a sufficient apology for what might otherwise appear an act of presumption, the attempt on the part of an individual, however humble and unfitted for the task by the lack of professional training, not merely to form clear ideas for himself upon these subjects, but also to endeavour to impress them upon others. For they are matters of immediate and universal concern; the duty of examining our opinions respecting them is incumbent upon all, under an awful weight of responsibility, if not to the full extent for the correctness of our conclusions, at any rate for the diligence, earnestness, and fidelity with which we have prosecuted the inquiry. The imposing names of Philosophy and Theology do but cover up those direct and momentous questions, which even the most incurious disposition at times must ask, What must I believe, and upon what standard, or by what authority, must I regulate my conduct? All other things are of temporary, these are of eternal interest. And this duty of examination is one which is perpetually renewed, as from age to age the nature of the problem shifts, or we encounter new difficulties in the way of the inquiry, proceeding from new habits of thought, from the progress of science and speculation, and from the altered relations of man to man which spring from political changes and new forms of society. The evidences of religious truth need to be constantly taken up anew, and presented under a variety of aspects, to suit the changing emergencies of the times. Political fanaticism sometimes turns its destructive rage against the institutions of our faith; new doctrines in philosophy, proposed at first as mere exercises of fancy, gradually harden into fixed dogmas, and secretly undermine the foundations of belief; and, lastly, the natural allies of religion, perverted by malign influences, sometimes become its opponents, and the cause of divine truth suffers from the fanaticism of philanthropy and reform. Against all these enemies, which often carry on their warfare, not from without, but in the silence of his own meditations, the believer needs to be constantly armed, if he would not have his faith degenerate into a mere prejudice, or shield itself under the hard covering of a stern and irrational dogmatism. According to the common notion, Philosophy and Theology are sister sciences, so closely allied that it is often difficult to make a distinction between them. Every person must hold some opinions relative to each, and these opinions form two mutually dependent creeds, which may be, in a greater or less degree, peculiar to himself, and of which the action and reaction are so nearly equal that it is often difficult to determine which is the parent of the other. Every theory respecting the origin and first principles of human knowledge must bear a close relation to that subject in regard to which knowledge is of the highest value, the doctrine of God, duty, and immortality. The religion of the Greeks and Romans, so far as it existed in a definite and consistent form, that is, as it was conceived by enlightened and thinking men among them, was wholly drawn. from their philosophical tenets, or, more properly speaking, it was identical with those tenets. And so it has been in modern times. Skepticism in philosophy and skepticism in religion, if not the same thing, at least usually go together. This, I say, is the common view of the subject; and we might therefore well expect, what often happens, that the claims of the two sciences, so called, should seriously conflict. Men are drawn different ways by opposite fears, by their dread on the one hand of an irreligious philosophy, and on the other of an unphilosophical religion. Loyalty to truth, which is the highest claim that can be made upon human reason, is drawn into open hostility with our sense of duty to God, which is the most awful and imperative of all obligations. The course of the student of science, the honest and sincere inquirer after knowledge, often appears adverse or injurious to the feelings or the faith-the prejudices, if you like of the religious believer, the devout worshipper of an Omnipotent Father and Friend. And even where direct opposition is avoided, a disputed claim to precedence is set up, and sometimes brings with it an intolerable burden of anxiety and doubt. On the one hand, it is maintained that every religious creed must be tried at the bar of human science, and its doctrines accepted or rejected according to their agreement with the speculative dogmas which the unaided reason has evolved as the limits and criteria of truth; on the other, the sacredness of the subject is unwarily held up to shield it from all investigation, and not infrequently discoveries in science are denounced, if they are at variance with the supposed dictates of revelation. If metaphysics are made a test of the truth of Chris |