The Critical Review of Theological & Philosophical Literature

By Alexander Balmain Bruce, D.D., Professor of Apologetics and New Testament Exegesis in the Free Church College, Glasgow. Being the First Series of the Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Glasgow in 1897. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1897. Post 8vo, pp. 391. Price, 7s. 6d.

Elements of the Science of Religion.

Part I., Morphological. Being the Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Edinburgh in 1896, by C. P. Tiele, Theol.D.; Litt.D. (Bonon.); Hon. M.R.A.S., &c., Professor of the History and Philosophy of Religion in the University of Leyden. Edinburgh and London: Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1897. Post 8vo, pp. ix. 302. Price, 7s. 6d. net.

As the Gifford Lectures are delivered sometimes in the earlier, sometimes in the later portion of the University Session, it might save a possible confusion if they were always described with the full indication of the Session to which they belong. Thus, the series named at the head of this notice were both given during Session 1896-97, and are therefore parallel, though from their titlepages they might be understood as belonging to different years.

Professor Bruce has chosen as his special topic one well within the range indicated by Lord Gifford in his Deed by Bequest, by which he instituted lectures on "Natural Theology." The aspect of this general subject here dealt with is the "The Providential Order of the World," and the propositions to be established are stated in a broad way in the following sentence :— "That God cares for man individually and collectively; that His nature is such, and that He sustains such a relation to man as makes that care natural and credible; that His care covers all human interests, but especially the higher ethical interests-righteousness, goodness-in the individual and in society; that He is a moral Governor, and a benignant Father, a Power making for righteousness, and a Power overcoming evil with good; that He ruleth over all things with a view to a kingdom of the good" (pp. 6, 7). Dr Bruce's method is to assume that it is so as a preliminary, guiding hypothesis, and then by an investigation into the circumstances of man's position, nature and history, to show how far, especially in the light of modern theories and difficulties, the hypothesis is justified by a fair view of the facts.

The chief theory which has to be reckoned with in this connection is naturally the theory of Evolution, and Dr Bruce's book will doubtless appear to many as an elaborate attempt to make friends of the mammon of evolution as the only refuge for the bewildered in the search for everlasting intellectual habitations. It is only fair to note, however, that his treatment of the subject is on this side also largely hypothetical, that while on a first glance he seems to make important concessions to a Monistic philosophy,—while occasionally we get such an argument as that "making man in his entire nature subject to evolutionary law. . . presents certain advantages for the cause of Theism" (p. 26), while in another connection our author goes so far as to say-" It may be a kind of duty to modern science to believe that this is so, even in absence of proof" (p. 286),— his usual attitude is of the non-committal order. He does not hold a brief for Evolution; he expressly avoids dogmatising on many points; on many he disclaims the right or the competence to judge authoritatively. His position is that, even if the claims of evolution be granted, if it be regarded as a theory universally applicable, it is still possible to maintain, and to support by reference to the facts which the world, looked at from an evolutionary point of view, supplies, that God is, and is such as Theism represents Him to be. While in the light of modern science the old Teleology has been proved untenable-"final causes being in reality effects" and the earth being "suited to its inhabitants because it has produced them so that " only such as suit it live" (p. 13; the last sentence is quoted from Barratt's Physical Ethics), there is possible a wider Teleology grounded upon the world-order itself. There is no reason why, as Mr Fiske remarks (Idea of God-Preface, p. xxiv.), "when a distinct dramatic tendency in the events of the universe appears as the result of purely scientific investigation, we should refuse to recognise it . . . and while such a tendency cannot be regarded as indicative of purpose in the limited anthropomorphic sense, it is still the objective aspect of that which, when regarded on its subjective side, we call Purpose." "The doctrine of evolution," Mr Fiske says again (p. xx.), "by exhibiting the development of the highest spiritual human qualities as the goal toward which God's creative work has from the outset been tending, replaces man in his old position of headship in the universe, even as in the days of Dante and Aquinas." The last sentence might stand as expressing the basis, if not the theme, of Professor Bruce's lectures-" Man, the crown of creation, the key to its meaning and to the nature of the Creator-such was the doctrine enunciated at the commencement of this course as the basis of our whole inquiry. Man, endowed with rational and moral powers, redeeming the lower parts of creation from insignificance and making it worth while for God to have to do with it.

This is

the providential view of the creative process " (p. 358). Evolution, according to the often repeated distinction, is a modal not a causal theory of the universe; it has nothing to do with origins, it sets forth methods. It does not exclude God, it only claims to be the mode of the divine action, if such there be. The providential view "does not supersede the physical or mechanical view, but is simply a different way of contemplating the same thing. The universe is evolved according to ascertained or ascertainable natural laws. But all the time there is an ultimate cause at work within the evolutionary process who has an aim in view, and who directs the process so that that aim shall be realised. The aim is man, and all that goes before has its reason of existence in him, and its value through him" (p. 358). The theory of evolution in itself, even by its unbroken continuities, cannot be held as confirming the Atheistic any more than the Theistic hypothesis, for as was shrewdly pointed out by Mr Romanes in a passage referred to by Dr Bruce (p. 15), if God be personal and all causation the immediate expression of His will, yet if that will be self-consistent, "all natural causation must needs appear to us 'mechanical,' and it is no argument against the divine origin of a thing, event, &c., to prove it due to natural causation." "All may be mechanism, yet all may also be teleology." Working from this starting-point and upon these principles, Professor Bruce proceeds to consider "Man's Place in the Universe," and the reasons for and against regarding his intellectual and moral nature, as well as his bodily frame, as a stage in an evolutionary process. The aim is, "if possible, to make faith independent of the truth or falsehood of scientific theories and hypotheses" (p. 44). In the third lecture the "Theistic Inferences " from the position thus gained are considered. First, the propriety is questioned of recognising in a Theistic interest crises or exceptional stages in the process of evolution,— such as the commencement of the process itself, the origin of life and of consciousness-as those in which the finger of God can be most clearly seen at work; and then the argument that man is the end and the interpretation of the whole process is more fully worked out. But before the argument can be applied in detail to the several spheres of human experience, three sources of unbelief in the Providential order have to be considered and counteracted. These are: "Views of God incompatible with the idea of a Providential world-aim; facts of human life pessimistically interpreted which seem to give the hypothesis of a Divine care for man the lie; cynical estimates of human nature rendering belief in man being an end for God impossible" (p. 19). In the fourth lecture, accordingly, the first of these difficulties is faced : "Conceptions of God as a non-moral deity below caring for man,

and the interests man as a moral personality represents." The conceptions referred to are those of Spinoza, Schopenhauer and Hartmann. As the positions of the latter largely depend upon the justice or otherwise of the verdict they pass upon human life as a whole, the Pessimistic attitude is subjected to a careful criticism in the lecture entitled "The Worth of Life." "The truth," it is said, "lies between two extremes. Unqualified optimism is as false as unqualified pessimism" (p. 110); and in seeking for a standard of judgment, we are led to the conclusion that "the bearing of experience upon the moral interest must always be the dominant, if not the exclusive, consideration' (p. 114). Pain is not the one great reality of human life; even it serves beneficent ends (p. 119). And Progress is real, though it may be slow (p. 136). The second objection, founded upon ideas of man which make him a being beneath the notice of God, forms the subject of Lecture VI. The ancient objections of Celsus form an appropriate introduction to a consideration of the modern difficulties whereby we are tempted to indulge in contempt for man even at his best, still more for the average of mankind, and most of all for man regarded in his primitive or undeveloped and degenerate conditions. Of special interest here are Dr Bruce's suggestions as to pre-historic man, and the evidences that a watchful Providence was guiding his footsteps towards better and higher things. Even with degenerate man, though there may be more doubt, there need be no despair. With Lecture VII. we enter upon the historic field, in which Dr Bruce shows himself much at home by his happy and suggestive combinations. Here we have, first, a consideration of what is implied in the moral government of God-God as the "Power making for righteousness." Though a partial truth, it is a truth; it has its witness, first of all, in the conscience; and again its retributive aspect is plainly to be read in history. Nations perish for want of righteousness. In the contest between good and evil, the victory, though it may be long delayed, is on the side of good, of morality reinforced by religion. "The Power working in and for Humanity" is in the eighth and ninth lectures illustrated under the respective headings of "Historic Dawns" and "Historic Days." Their aim is thus expressed: "If God worked towards man in lower stages of the creative process, we expect that He will work on in man towards adequate realisation of the human ideal. Creation, evolution will go on now in the human sphere. If there be no trace of onward movement in history, there will be reason to suspect that we were mistaken in our whole conception of man's place in the universe and of its significance" (p. 202). By Historic Dawn is meant the observa

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