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Theology has its own method.

characteristic of the true results, while they are otherwise true in themselves. But on the other hand if the methods appropriate to a higher zone are applied to a lower, then the results are wholly fictitious.

Both these faulty methods of procedure have, as has been already noticed, been actually carried into effect. The method of Theology has been applied to Physics, and the issue was mere dreams; and now the method of Physics is applied to Theology, and the result must be of necessity the denial of all that is peculiar to Theology.

True Theologians therefore will strive to guard themselves alike against the temptation to refuse to other sciences the fullest scope as far as they reach, and against the temptation to acknowledge that they are finally authoritative over that which does not come within their range. They will not withdraw one document which helps to define their faith from the operation of any established law of criticism, but they will refuse to admit that any historical inquiry can decide that there is no revelation. They will refuse to accept as an axiom (or a postulate) that every record which attests a revelation must be false.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WORK OF THE PRE-CHRISTIAN NATIONS TOWARDS THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEMS

OF LIFE.

WE have already seen in a rapid survey what are the typical mysteries which underlie human life, what are the forces which constrain us to consider them, what are the conditions under which we must seek for their solution. Christianity-the Gospel of the Resurrection-is as I have already said the complete answer to all our questionings, so far as we can receive an answer at present, an answer which we are slowly spelling out through the growing experience of the life of the Church. But before this complete answer was given other answers were made, partial and tentative, which offer for our study the most solemn aspect of ancient history. Some of these answers I propose now to examine summarily. If we can in any way apprehend them clearly, we

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We require a religious solution

shall understand better than by any other method both the wants of man, and the resources which he has himself for supplying them, and the extent to which his natural endowments are able to satisfy his wants.

But before we endeavour to characterise the chief solutions which have been proposed for the riddle of life apart from Christianity, it is necessary to define again the character of the solution which we require, and to determine the general principles on which we may treat the religions of the world as ancillary to and illustrative of the gospel.

We require then briefly a religious solution: a solution which shall deal with the great questions of our being and our destiny in relation to thought and action and feeling. The Truth at which we aim must take account of the conditions of existence and define the way of conduct. It is not for speculation only: so far Truth is the subject of philosophy. It is not for discipline only so far it is the subject of ethics. It is not for embodiment only: so far it is the subject of art. Religion in its completeness is the harmony of the three, philosophy, ethics, and art, blended into one by a spiritual power, by a consecration at once personal and absolute. The direction of

of the problems of life.

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philosophy, to express the thought somewhat differently is theoretic and its end is the True, as the word is applied to knowledge: the direction of Ethics is practical, and its end is the Good: the direction of Art is representative, and its end is the Beautiful. Religion includes these three ends but adds to them that in which they find their consecration, the Holy. The Holy brings an infinite sanction and meaning to that which is otherwise finite and relative. It expresses not only a complete inward peace but also an essential fellowship with GOD.

The perfect religion, the perfect solution of the mysteries of life, will offer these elements and aims in absolute adjustment and efficacy; and each element and aim will exist, at least in a rudimentary form, in every religion. But from our inherent incompleteness and faultiness now one element and now another will be unduly prominent. It It may be thought or will or feeling which is in excess, and then there will follow the dangers of dogmatism or moralism or mysticism. Every religion and every age offers illustrations of such one-sided developments; and it is easy to see through these very exaggerations that if religion is to correspond with the fulness of life the three constituents are essential to its complete activity;

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The idea of religion.

and that each one severally needs the other two for its own proper realisation.

Such considerations serve also to indicate a comprehensive definition of religion. It has been defined as the consciousness of dependence: as right action; and as knowledge. In these several conceptions there is some confusion from the fundamental differences in the point of sight from which religion may be regarded. Religion may be regarded as a tendency, a potential energy or faculty in man, or as a system, a view, of life corresponding to some stage of the development of this tendency, or as the external expression which it finds in personal conduct. Thus all the definitions given above contain a fragment of truth though they deal severally with one side of the truth only. All point to a harmony of being as the final aim towards which man reaches out as born for religion, and which religions seek to represent in some partial and yet intelligible form. Even the rudest demon-worship contains the germ of this feeling by which the worshipper seeks to be at one with some power which is adverse to him. It is a witness to something in man by which he is naturally constituted to feel after a harmonious fellowship with all that of which he is conscious, with the unseen, and