< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu
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COMMENTS BY PROFESSOR HENRY DRUMMOND.

811

secours surnaturel dont, comme chrétien, vous devez les croire guidés? Oh? Dans l'esprit absolument nouveau qui anime leur narration, bien que la forme en soit restée presque de tout point la même que chez les peuples voisins.[1] [Trans.—But if it is so, I may be asked, where, then, do you see the divine inspiration of the writers who made this archæology, the supernatural aid by which you, as a Christian, must believe they were guided? Where? In the absolutely new spirit that animates their narration, although the form of it may still be in almost every point the same as with the neighboring peoples.]

A second principle is expressed with such appositeness to the present purpose, by an English commentator, that his words may be given at length:

There is a principle frequently insisted on, scarcely denied by any, yet recognized with sufficient clearness by few of the advocates of revelation, which, if fully and practically recognized, would have saved themselves much perplexity and vexation, and the cause they have at heart the disgrace with which it has been covered by the futile attempts that have been made, through provisional and shifting interpretations, to reconcile the Mosaic Genesis with the rapidly advancing strides of physical science. The principle referred to is this: matters which are discoverable by human reason, and the means of investigation which God has put within the reach of man's faculties, are not the proper subjects of Divine revelation; and matters which do not concern morals, or bear on man's spiritual relations toward God, are not within the province of revealed religion.[2]

Here lies the whole matter. It is involved in the mere meaning of revelation, and proved by its whole expression, that its subject-matter is that which men could not find out for themselves. Men could find out the order in which the world was made. What they could not find out was, that God made it. To this day they have not found that out. Even some of the wisest of our contemporaries, after trying to find that out for half a lifetime, have been forced to give it up. Hence the true function of revelation. Nature in Genesis has no link with geology, seeks none and needs none: man has no link with biology, and misses none. What he really needs and really misses—for he can get it nowhere else—Genesis gives him; it links Nature and man with their Maker. And this is the one high sense in which Genesis can be said to be scientific. The scientific man must go there to complete his science, or it remains forever incomplete. Let him no longer resort thither to attack what is not really there. What is really there he can not attack, for he can not do without it. Nor let religion plant positions there which can only keep science out. Then only can the interpreters of Nature and the interpreters of Genesis understand each other.—Nineteenth Century.

  1. ↑ "Les Origines de l'Histoire," Préf., xviii.
  2. ↑ Quarry, "Genesis," pp. 12, 13.
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