THE PRINCIPLES OF METAPHYSICAL AND ETHICAL SCIENCE APPLIED TO THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION. A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ANNOTATED, FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES. BY FRANCIS BOWEN, A. M. ALFORD PROFESSOR OF NATURAL RELIGION, MORAL PHILOSOPHY, AND CIVIL POLITY IN HARVARD COLLEGE. DIVINITY EL LIBRARY. HARVARD UNIVERSITY BOSTON: HICKLING, SWAN AND BROWN. BT 1101 864 1855 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE: ALLEN AND FARNHAM, STEREOTYPERS PREFACE. THE substance of this work was delivered in two courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston, in the winters of 1848-9. These lectures were afterwards published, but the edition of them is now exhausted. Having had occasion to use the work as a text-book of instruction, for the students of Harvard College, in the leading doctrines of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy, considered as bearing upon the Evidences of Religion, I have endeavored to recast the materials in this edition, so as to render it more avail able for such a purpose. A few abridgments have made room for considerable additions, mostly in the form of notes, which are principally designed to elucidate and criticize at greater length those doctrines and theories on philosophy and science which were but briefly noticed in the lectures. In its present form, the work is designed to be a compend of the principles of Ethics and Metaphysics, so far as these affect the foundations of our religious belief. Some of the notes are merely explanatory, while others are intended, by citations from different writers, to support the positions maintained in the text. I have made free use, for this purpose, of the writings of Isaac Taylor, John S. Mill, Dr. Whewell, and Sir William Hamilton. In its present form, the work may be regarded as an imperfect supplement to the invaluable treatises of Dr. Butler and Dr. Paley, the principal object being to consider those objections and difficulties in the way of the believer which are of recent origin, or have grown out of recent discoveries and speculations in science and philosophy, as well as the important additions to the Evidences of Religion which have been derived from the same source. In the Preface to the first edition, it was remarked, that though so many volumes have been written upon the Evidences of Religion, it does not appear that the subject is exhausted, or that the productions of a former age are, in every respect, suited to the exigencies of our own times. There are peculiar forms of infidelity, or peculiar causes of latitudinarian opinions in religion, which are more prevalent in one age than another. I have endeavored in this work to meet those objections and difficulties which are most current in our own day; to meet them with that course of argument and illustration which has seemed most satisfactory to my own mind, and without fear of incurring the charge of a want of originality on the one hand, or of a fondness for novel and abstruse speculations on the other. I have not been afraid, either to follow in the footsteps of others, if their arguments happened to be best adapted to my purpose, or to strike off into a new path, if I might thereby more surely and safely attain the great object in view. Those who find little that is new in this book, may be assured that it was not written for them, but for a class of readers who are less adequately informed upon the subject. Those who dislike abstract speculations, may pass it over for a similar reason; if they have never been entangled in a web of metaphysical subtilties, a clew to the labyrinth will be of no service to them. ness. Some repetitions may be found in these pages, as I have been more willing to incur the charge of prolixity and a frequent recurrence to the same line of remark and argument, than of obscurity or an affected abstruseThe nature of the objections considered has unavoidably led me into some of the dark corners of speculation; but I have honestly tried to dissipate rather than increase the obscurity, and for this purpose, have often held up the same subject in many different lights, and looked at it from various points of view, Though the recapitulation, at the beginning of one chapter, of the argument in the preceding one, is not so useful for the reader as the hearer, I have allowed it to remain as it was written, because, when an argument has been once explained at length and with some minuteness, a brief summary of it often makes the connection of its parts more obvious, and the reasoning itself more clear and convincing. In alluding to some of the novel opinions and theories in science and philosophy, which have gained a little popularity of late both in England and America, though their place of origin must be sought elsewhere, it has not been my wish to provoke controversy. Opinions may be freely discussed without causing offence; I have never referred to the individuals or sects who entertain and defend them. Some of these opinions, I am well aware, are held by many persons who unite with them a lively and steadfast faith, a devotional spirit, and a religious life; but they have been stumbling-blocks to others, for whom alone I have endeavored to surmount or remove them. The discussion of them has sometimes led me further into the territory of the natural sciences than it was perhaps prudent for one to venture who has only a general acquaintance with these subjects, and has never made them objects of special pursuit. But in these days, when knowledge is so widely diffused that the latest theories and discoveries in science are familiarly discussed in the newspapers, the bearing of these theories upon the religious belief of the multitude cannot be safely neglected. I have no fears of any conflict between the truths of real science and those either of Natural or Revealed Religion. The voice of nature, when rightly interpreted, never contradicts itself, and the truth that is fully comprehended is always sufficient for its own defence. But when sciolism is almost universal, speculations which usurp the name and garb of science may often give a rude shock to the convictions of a large class who are not well instructed enough to be able to separate hypotheses from established facts, and who can be dazzled by the fluent use of scientific phraseology. Such speculations are easily exposed in their true character, even by those A* |