the planet Neptune was as beautiful an instance of what may be done by deductive reasoning as could possibly be imagined; while again the most profound view of the dogma of the Trinity is that which sees in it the result of a process of induction worked out by the collective mind of the Church with the statements of Scripture and the phenomena of consciousness for data. The formula was accepted as the only one that reasonably accounted for all the facts. It is plain, then, that this easy and shallow classification will not aid us in finding the precise point at which theological science and the several sciences part company.

But if the difference between the two sorts of reasoning lie not in the manner, is it to be sought for in the matter? Is it the fact that two welldefined districts of thought can be set apart as belonging the one to scientific, the other to theological inquirers? Here again we shall be obliged to answer, No. The very cause of the heat that has arisen between the theological and the anti-theological writers is, that their fields of inquiry to a great extent coincide. Each is trying to prove the other a trespasser upon marches that really belong to both. There is no such rigid boundary-line between the spiritual and the natural as will permit our ranging the theologians all on one side, and the men of science all on the other. Coleridge endeavored to found a philos

ophy of inspiration upon such a distinction; but even his great powers were unequal to the task. The farther we penetrate into the borderland between the seen and the unseen, the material and the immaterial, the more evident does it become that no great gulf breaks up their continuity. It is, moreover, very interesting to notice that the antagonism to which I have alluded is much more marked in connection with the mixed than in the case of the pure sciences. There is no strife between Geometry and Christianity; the Gospel has no controversy with the Calculus; but Geology has been at war with Genesis ever since that science came into being, and many a recent invective against theological narrowness would lose half its force, had the Church never persecuted astronomy in the person of Galileo. All this grows out of the fact that theologians and naturalists have so much, rather than so little, subject matter in common. Who can fail to trace a certain intellectual resemblance between the Calvin of the sixteenth century and the Darwin of the nineteenth? Parallel phenomena suggested to the one thinker his doctrine of the salvability of the few, and to the other his law of the survival of the fittest.

Theology and philosophy do but echo one another. The evolution controversy now engrossing the attention of the naturalists is only the old strife between creationism and traducianism

under a new name. With the triumph of "the primordial germ " will come back the Augustinian doctrine, that we all sinned in Adam by actual presence in his personality. Modern students of nature seldom speak of the Mosaic cosmogony with overmuch respect, and yet it is astonishing to notice what a passion for worldmaking they often exhibit themselves. If Moses's account of the origin of things be a tax upon faith, what shall we say of Lord Kelvin's ? No, men cannot help thinking upon these subjects and cannot help reasoning about them; the mind demands some theory of beginnings; and doubtless new cosmogonies will be forthcoming, yearly, while the world lasts. It is plain therefore that we cannot segregate a certain number of facts and say peremptorily, either to the theologian or to the naturalist, "Hands off!"

Where then are we to find the differentia of theology? Not, it would seem, in the logical method employed, nor yet in the subject of inquiry. Where then? In the postulates, I answer, from which theology starts. In every effort of human thought, the reasoner must have something to lean his back against, otherwise he gets no purchase. This backing is the postulate, or conceded truth, from which his argument starts. All the sciences have their postulates; some more, some less. The pure sciences have but one, namely, the accuracy of the laws of thought,

This much must be conceded, or Euclid himself is impotent. The mixed sciences require at least two further postulates, which are the reality of the external world and the general credibility of human testimony. To these, theology adds still other two, which are peculiarly her own, namely, the existence of a personal God, and the reality of a moral distinction between right and wrong. God and conscience, these are the distinctive postulates of theology. No man is obliged to accept them. They do not compel assent, for, if they did, they would be axioms and not postulates. And yet, from the moment of our acceptance of them, all our serious thinking, if it be consistent with itself, becomes ipso facto theological. With them for implements, theology has been, these many centuries, building her temple; using for material the facts of consciousness, the facts of nature and the facts of history; casting away as rubbish, now and then, what for a time had seemed permanent portions of the fabric, but preserving, all the while, certain grand lines of symmetry and strength by which men have been able to take knowledge of the building that it is of God.

Consider the grounds of our religious convictions. As Christian men, we accept the Catholic creed,-why? Because the articles of it have all of them been demonstrated beyond the possibility of cavil? No, there is not one of them that

admits of demonstration in the strict sense of the word; but we accept the Creed because, starting from the belief that God is, and that He is righteous, we have been led, taking everything into account, to find in its pregnant sentences, altogether the likeliest answer to the questions of the mind and of the heart. "Of the heart," I say, as well as "of the mind," for while theology rightly refuses to be relegated to "the region of emotion," she is quick to insist that in any scientific study of man, any accurate inventory of his belongings, not only his power to think and know, but also his instincts of love, worship and obedience must find room.

Note, now, another point. It is only from the vantage ground of theology that the correlation of the various parts of human knowledge can be effected. The system is not heliocentric until you have enthroned Deity at the heart of things. In their several lines of activity, the sciences can push ahead without the aid of the postulates of theology. Experience shows this. Undevout

astronomers have lived who were perfectly sane. La Place had "no need of the hypothesis of God." But when it comes to unifying the various branches of human knowledge, bringing history and art and language into harmony with their half-sisters among the sciences called natural; when it comes to ranging in just order the grades and levels of the mind's acquirement, then