orthodoxy and to Presbytery, as they did to their livings, and when they lapsed, lapsed into a literal and narrow sort of Socinianism. They had few tendencies to latitude; and, most certainly, they had no breadth. Shallowness was their characteristic rather than breadth, and it was an easier virtue to attain. They were no doubt largely influenced by the great and learned men who formed the Latitudinarian party in England; but the influence, as it took effect on them, seems to me to have been of a peculiarly unfortunate kind. For Latitude is eminently an ambiguous virtue. In one man it is a great and noble attainment; in another it is the poor result of a poor nature; and in all it is to be judged, not according to its degree, but according to its kind. And as a transmitted virtue it is received in modum recipientis. The Moderates were men who had not got rid of doctrine, but who kept the doctrine and got rid of its life; and it is only in a remote way that this can be said to be derived from Tillotson and Chillingworth and the Latitudinarian school. But infinitely less can it be said to be derived from Baxter and Leighton ! These men, I take it, were not so much Latitudinarians as men of breadth (and the difference is often simply infinite); but their latitude, like their moderation, was a whole pole asunder from that of their supposed successors. It is surely an astounding assertion that,

"However much in later days the Moderate party in Scotland may have become of the earth, earthy,' it was something for them to be able to claim as their first founder the most apostolical and the most saintlike of all Protestant Scotchmen."

There is no such genealogy-that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit! Leighton had really no connection with the Scotch Moderates, and Baxter had still less. These two men were broad, and the Moderates were narrow; they loved peace, and the Moderates loved sloth: they loved central truths earnestly, and would, therefore, dispense with circumstantials, while the Moderates loved nothing well enough to dispense with anything for the sake of what they loved. An unlovely, cold-blooded race on their belly they must go, in history, as in the century which they adorned.

Now, how is it that Dean Stanley, the quick-eyed, sympathizing friend of whatsoever things are lovely and of good report through the wide realm of history, has seemed to all Scotland to recommend a gradual return to its condition in last century as on the whole the best thing for the Scotch Church? It is because his theory makes it a necessity; because Erastianism (at least when superinduced upon a Church that is free in the utterance of its creed), requiring, as its condition, a having-in-readiness to dispense with all Church beliefs, requires also for its practical working that the energy of Church life shall be lowered to prepare for the inevitable conditions of the case. And

therefore it is that those Scotchmen who admire him most personally, and are indeed under the greatest obligations to his unfailing courtesy and kindness, are yet unable to keep silence when the question concerns the dearest interests of our country. For it is a Scotch question. It would be excessively rash to look with confidence for equally disastrous results of Erastianism in England. We have had a very different history, moving on a level of conscious Church life, from which it is possible ruinously to fall. That that Church life has in the past been too restricted, too dogmatic, and too selfish, is certainly true. The real heir-looms of the Presbyterianism of Scotland have been its depositum of faith and its fiery though contracted heart of love; but it has need of the steadfast exertions of its sons in these days to add to these the liberality and tolerance," the independence, the romance, the humour, the fervour, the prudence," which, however insufficient as a heritage in themselves, are precious as accessories and as aids. And in this direction it is making progress, though too timidly and slowly-too slowly, even though we grant that no permanent progress can be made per saltum, and that the first necessity for a country's future is not to break with its past. But while it would be unwise to break suddenly with the past, even in matters of indifference and detail, it would be ruin to break with its whole vital principle in the way that is now proposed. It is not merely that Scotchmen have a pathetic and patriotic interest in the kirk and creed of their fathers; that

"The souls of now three hundred years,
Have laid up here their hopes and fears
And all the treasure of their pain-

Ah! yet consider it again."

We are bound to consider it under a sense of responsibility to the present; for as a nation judges its history, it is itself being judged. And the great law, for a man or a people, is, a people, is, "We needs must love the highest when we see it, not Lancelot, nor another." The dashing, romantic, Scottish Episcopalian type of Walter Scott has been our Lancelot, flushed with the light from the "low sun" of departing chivalry; and it will not be forgotten. But we have had a higher and graver call, and, with many faults of self-conceit and hardness and narrowness, have yet as a nation hearkened to it. No doubt we need catholicity, elasticity, variety, and sympathetic adaptation; but there are more ways than one in which a nation may seek these gifts. The one way is very easy, and very worthless; the other, that which retains ardent religious conviction, and strives to add to it toleration, is very hard and high. But it is the only way in which it is fit that Scotland should walk, or in which it is desirable to succeed. ALEX. TAYLOR INNES.

HE

E who pretends to have anything new to say upon so old a subject as the immortality of the soul, must expect to arouse certainly opposition, and probably contempt. Nevertheless, this at least is certain, that the tendency of science, which has powerfully affected every domain of thought in new and unexpected ways, cannot but place the old doctrine of immortality under new and, it may be, unexpected lights, abolishing old arguments, and suggesting new ones that have not yet obtained the consideration they deserve. My object in this paper is, to endeavour, by the aid of all-victorious analysis, to throw some little light upon the relations of the belief in immortality with scientific thought; and at the outset, I wish distinctly and positively to affirm, that it is not my intention to construct any argument for the belief against science, but merely to explain the conditions under which, as it seems to me, the question must be debated. Those conditions, though in themselves plain and simple, are, I believe, very imperfectly understood, and much bewildering nonsense is talked upon both sides of the question by men who have not clearly realised the nature of evidence, the amount of proof required, or the sources from which that proof must be derived. I think it possible to lay down a series of propositions with which, in principle at any rate, most reasonable minds would agree, and which would have the effect of defining the area of debate and the true

point of conflict. This may sound presumptuous, whether it be really so or not, the event alone can prove.

Now, the first demand of science is for an accurate definition of the object of discussion, that is, that both religious and scientific thinkers should be quite sure that they are discussing the same thing. Immortality is bound up in the minds of religious people with a vast amount of beautiful and endearing associations, which form no part of the hard, dry fact itself. The definition of immortality, viewed scientifically, is, I take it, something of this sort: the existence of a thinking, self-conscious personality after death, that is, after the bodily functions have ceased to operate. This personality may or may not exist for ever; it may or may not be responsible for the past; it may or may not be capable of rest, joy, and love; it may or may not be joined to its old body or to a new body. These, and a hundred similar beliefs with which religion has clothed the mere fact of existence after death, form no essential part, I must again affirm, of the fact itself. And throughout the argument, this, and no other than this, will be the sense in which I use the word immortality; because it is the only one that I have a right to expect that the scientific mind will accept.

It may be well, also, before going further, to make it clear to ourselves in what sense we use the word religion. Men who would be very much ashamed of themselves if they were detected using scientific words inaccurately, do, nevertheless, attribute meanings to the word religion, which it is difficult to hear with patience. I have heard an eminent scientific man upon a public occasion, and in a serious manner, define religion to be duty, making a mere idle play upon the original meaning of the word. Without, however, entering into verbal discussions, it will be, surely, enough to define religion as a practical belief in and consciousness of God and immortality; and, as the latter is now absolutely essential to the idea of religion as a motive moral power, and as, moreover, it includes, or at any rate necessitates the belief in the existence of God, we may fairly conclude that, for all practical purposes, and certainly for the purpose of this argument, religion is synonymous with a belief in immortality. And if, for any reason, mankind does at any time cease to believe in its own immortality, then religion will also have ceased to exist as a part of the consciousness of humanity. To clear up, therefore, the relations between immortality and science becomes a matter of the utmost importance. It will be well next to analyse briefly the effect which science has upon the nature of the proofs by which this, like all other facts, must be demonstrated. Let us, for convenience sake, regard the world as a vast jury, before which the various advocates of many truths, and of still more numerous errors, plead the cause of their

respective clients. However much a man may wrap himself up in the consciousness of ascertained truth, and affirm that it makes no matter to him what the many believe, yet nature is in the long run too powerful for him, and the instinct of humanity excites him to plead the cause of what he knows to be truth, and to mourn in his heart and be sore vexed if men reject it. Truth is ever generous and hopeful, though at the same time patient and long-suffering; she longs to make converts, but does not deny herself or turn traitress to her convictions if converts refuse to be made. There is a sense, indeed, in which it may be said that truth only becomes actual and vital by becoming subjective through receiving the assent of men. What then must the advocate for the fact of the immortality of the soul expect that science will require of him, when he pleads before the tribunal of the world for that truth which, because it is dear to himself, he wishes to enforce on others?

The alterations in the minds of men which the tendency of modern thought has effected in respect of evidence, may be summed up under two heads. First, the nature of the evidence required is altogether altered, and a great many arguments that would in former days have gone to the jury, are now summarily suppressed. Fact can only be proved by facts, that is, by events, instances, things, which are submitted to experience and observation, and are confirmed by experiment and reason. And secondly, the minds of the jury are subject to a priori, and, on the whole, perfectly reasonable prepossessions before the trial begins. The existence of changeless law, the regular, natural, and orderly march of life, the numerous cases in which what seemed to be the effect of chance or miracle have been brought within the limits of ascertained causation; all these things predispose the mind against pleadings for the supernatural or the divine. Most true, of course it is, that there are most powerful prepossessions on the other side as well; but the difference is, that these are as old as man himself, while the former have only been of later times imported into the debate, and if they have not been originated, have at least received their definite aim and vivid impulse from the results of scientific research.

Now, the first result which flows from these alterations is the somewhat startling one, that all the arguments for immortality derived from natural religion (so-called) are, in the estimation of science, absolutely futile. To put this point in the strongest form, all the hopes, wishes, and convictions of all the men that ever lived, could not, and cannot convince one single mind that disbelieves in its own immortality. Unless the advocates of religion clearly apprehend this truth, they are, it seems to me, quite disabled from entering into the discussion upon conditions which their opponents, by the very law of this opposition,