Chapter XVII: Front Matter (17)

Prof. Youmans pretends that the difficulty of religious people with regard to advanced science is simply that of “narrowness or ignorance inspired by a fanatical earnestness.” We are greatly obliged by the compliment! Prof. Youmans is, indeed, a model of politeness, according to the standard of modern progress; but it did not occur to him that, before speaking of the “narrowness and ignorance” of his critics, he should have endeavored to atone for his own blunders which we pointed out in our number for April. To our mind, a man whose ignorance of logic and of many other things has been demonstrated has no right to talk of the ignorance of religious people. And as to “fanatical earnestness,” we need hardly say that it is in the _Popular Science Monthly_ and in other similar productions of “scientific” unbelievers that we find the best instances of its convulsive exertions. But let us proceed.

“Atheism,” continues the professor, “has now come to be a familiar and stereotyped charge against men of science, both on the part of the pulpit and the religious press. Not that they accuse all scientific men of atheism, but they allege this to be the tendency of scientific thought and the outcome of scientific philosophy. It matters nothing that this imputation is denied; it matters nothing that scientific men claim that their studies lead them to higher and more worthy conceptions of the divine power, manifested through the order of nature, than the conceptions offered by theology. It is enough that they disagree with current notions upon this subject, and any difference of view is here held as atheism. In this, as we have said, the theologians may be honest, but they are narrow and bigoted.”

Mr. Youmans does not perceive the tendency of “scientific” thought to foster atheism. Not he! Darwin’s theory of development has for its principal object to destroy, if possible, the history of creation and to get rid of the Creator. This Mr. Youmans does not perceive. Tyndall, in his Belfast lecture, professes atheism as the outcome of scientific philosophy, and, though he has offered some explanations to screen himself from the imputation, he stands convicted by his own words. Of this Mr. Youmans takes no notice. Büchner ridicules the idea that there is a God, and teaches that such an idea is obsolete, contrary to modern science, and condemned by philosophy as a manifest impossibility. Mr. Youmans seems to hold that this is not genuine atheism. Huxley, to avoid creation, gives up all investigation of the origin of things as useless and unscientific, and the advanced thinkers in general are everywhere at work propagating the same view in their scientific lectures, books, journals, and magazines. Yet Prof. Youmans wishes the world to believe that the tendency of advanced scientific thought is not towards atheism! Is he blind? The man who writes Nature with a capital letter, who denies creation, who contributes to the best of his power to the diffusion of infidel thought, can hardly be ignorant of the fact that what is now called advanced science is, in the hands of its apostles and leaders, an engine of war against God. But he knows also that to profess atheism is bad policy, for the present at least. Science, as he laments in many of his articles, has not yet advanced enough in the popular mind; people are still “narrow” and “ignorant,” and even “fanatic”—that is, their religious feelings and conscientious convictions do not yet permit a direct and outspoken confession of the atheistic tendency of modern “scientific” thought. Hence he is obliged to be cautious and to put on a mask. Such are, and ever have been, the tactics of God’s enemies. Thus Prof. Huxley, in his lectures on evolution, while attacking the Biblical history of creation, pretends that he is only refuting the “Miltonian hypothesis.” The same Prof. Huxley, with Herbert Spencer and many others of less celebrity, endeavors to conceal his atheism, or at any rate to make it appear less repulsive, by the convenient but absurd admission of the Great Unknown or Unknowable, to which surely neither he nor any other scientist will offer adoration, as it would be an utterly superfluous, unscientific, and unphilosophical thing to worship what they cannot know. And Prof. Youmans himself follows the same tactics, as we shall see in the sequel. Hence we do not wonder that he considers Mr. Draper’s words “a conflict between religion and science” as unfortunate, and only calculated to provoke criticism and theological abuse. It would have been so easy and so much better to say “between ecclesiasticism and science.” This would have saved appearances, and might have furnished a plausible ground for repelling the accusation of atheism.

But, says Prof. Youmans, “this imputation is denied.” We answer that the imputation cannot be evaded by any such denial. If there were question of the intimate convictions of private individuals, their denial might have some weight in favor of their secret belief. Men very frequently do not see clearly the ultimate consequences of their own principles; and it is for this reason that an atheistic science does not always lead to personal atheism. As there are honest Protestants who believe on authority, though their Protestant principle sacrifices authority to private judgment, so also there are many honest scientists who, notwithstanding their admission of atheistic theories, believe in God. This is mere inconsistency after all; and it can only furnish a ground for judging of the views of individual scientists.

But our question regards the tendency of “advanced scientific thought” irrespective of the inconsistency of sundry individuals. This question is to be solved from the nature of the principles and of the conclusions of “advanced” science; and if such principles and such conclusions are shown to lead logically to atheism, it matters very little indeed that “the imputation is denied.” This the editor of the _Popular Science Monthly_ must admit. Now, that atheism is the logical outcome of “advanced” science may be proved very easily. Dr. Büchner, in his _Force and Matter_, gives a long scientific argumentation against the existence of God. The science which led him to this profession of atheism is the “advanced” science of which Prof. Youmans speaks. Has any among the advanced scientists protested against Dr. Büchner’s conclusion? Have any of them endeavored to show that this conclusion was not logically deduced from the principles of their pretended science? Some of them may have been pained at the imprudent sincerity of the German doctor; but what he affirms with a coarse impudence they too insinuate every day in a gentler tone and in a more guarded phraseology. Their doctrine is that “whereas mankind formerly believed the phenomena of nature to be expressions of the will of a personal God, modern science, by reducing everything to laws, has given a sufficient explanation of these phenomena, and made it quite unnecessary for man to seek any further account of them.” Dr. Carpenter, from whom we have borrowed this statement, adds: “This is precisely Dr. Büchner’s position; and it seems to me a legitimate inference from the very prevalent assumption (which is sanctioned by the language of some of our ablest writers) that the so-called laws of nature ‘govern’ the phenomena of which they are only generalized expressions. I have been protesting against this language for the last quarter of a century.”[61]

Mr. Youmans himself implicitly admits that “advanced” science has given up the old notion of God; and he only contends that scientists, while disregarding the God of theology, fill up his place with something better. “Scientific men claim that their studies lead them to higher and more worthy conceptions of the divine power manifested through the order of nature than the conceptions offered by theology.” Our readers need hardly be told that this claim on the part of our advanced scientists is preposterous and ridiculous. For if the order of nature could lead to a conception of divine power higher or worthier than the conception offered by theology, it would lead to a conception of divine power greater and higher than omnipotence; for omnipotence is one of the attributes of the God of theology. But can we believe that Mr. Youmans entertains the hope of conceiving a power higher than omnipotence? How, then, can he make good his assertion? On the other hand, the God of theology is immense, eternal, and unchangeable, infinitely intelligent, infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely perfect, as not only all theologians but also all philosophers unquestionably admit. Must we believe that our scientists will be able to conceive a higher intellect, wisdom, or goodness than infinite intellect, infinite wisdom, or infinite goodness? Will they imagine anything greater than immensity, or than eternity? The editor of the _Popular Science Monthly_ has a very poor opinion indeed of the intellectual power of his habitual readers, if he thinks that they will not detect the absurdity of his claim.

But there is more than this. “Advanced” science has repeatedly confessed its inability to form a conception of God. The ultimate conclusion of “advanced” science is that the contemplation and study of nature afford no indication of what a God may be; so much so that the leaders of this “advanced” science, after suppressing the God of theology, could find nothing to substitute in his place but what they call “the Great Unknown” and “the Great Unknowable.” Now, surely, the unknowable cannot be known. How, then, can these scientists claim that their studies lead them “to higher and more worthy conceptions of the divine power”? Can they conceive that which is unknown and unknowable? Have they any means of ascertaining that a thing unknowable has power, or that its power is divine?

Let them understand that if their “Unknowable” is not eternal, it is no God; if it is not omniscient, it is no God; if it is not omnipotent, it is no God. And, in like manner, if it is not self-existent, immutable, immense, infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely perfect, it is no God. And, again, if it is not our Creator, our Master, and our Judge, it is no God, and we have no reason for worshipping it, or even for respecting it. How can we know that these and similar attributes can and must be predicated of the Unknowable, since the unknowable is not and cannot be known? If, on the contrary, we know that such a being is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, immense, and infinitely perfect in all manner of perfections, then it is obvious (even to Prof. Youmans, we assume) that such a being is neither unknown nor unknowable. Thus the unknowable can lay no claim to “divine power” or other divine attributes; and therefore the pretended worshippers of the Unknowable vainly attempt to palliate their atheism by claiming that their studies have led them “to a higher and more worthy conception of the divine power than the conception offered by theology.”

As to Prof. Youmans himself, he tells us that the divine nature is “unspeakable and unthinkable.” This evidently amounts to saying that the divine nature is unknowable, just as Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and others of the same sect have maintained. The professor will not deny, we trust, that what is unthinkable is also unknowable, unless he is ready to show that he knows the square circle. Hence the remarks we have passed on the doctrine of his leaders apply to him as well as to them. It is singular, however, that neither he nor any of his sect has thought of examining the question whether the “Unknowable” has any existence at all. For if it has no existence, they must confess that they have not even an unknown God, and therefore are absolute atheists; and if they assume that it has a real existence, they are supremely illogical; for no one has a right to proclaim the existence of a thing unknown and unknowable. The existence of the unknowable cannot be affirmed unless it be known; but it cannot be known unless the unknowable be known; and this implies a manifest contradiction. To affirm existence is to affirm a fact; and Mr. Youmans would certainly be embarrassed to show that science, however “advanced,” can affirm a fact of which it has no knowledge whatever. Hence atheism is the legitimate result of the doctrine which substitutes the “Unknowable” in the place of the God of theology; and “it matters nothing” that this consequence is _provisionally_ denied by Prof. Youmans. Were it not that the horror inspired by the impious pretensions of his fallacious science obliges him to keep within the measures of prudence, it is very likely that Prof. Youmans would not only not deny his “scientific” atheism, but even glory in its open profession. So long as this cannot be safely done he must remain satisfied with writing Nature with a capital N.

From these remarks we can further infer that Mr. Youmans’ complaint about the narrowness and bigotry of theologians is utterly unfounded. There is no narrowness in rejecting foolish conceptions, and no bigotry in maintaining the rights of truth. Theology condemns your doctrines, not because they “disagree with current notions,” but because they are manifestly impious and absurd. The views you encourage are atheistical. You admit only the Unknowable; and the Unknowable, as we have just proved, is not God. Hence the theologians are not “narrow” nor “bigoted,” but strictly logical and reasonable, when they condemn your doctrines as atheistical.

And now Prof. Youmans makes the following curious argument:

“It is surprising that they (the theologians) cannot see that in
arraigning scientific thinkers for atheism they are simply doing
what stupid fanatics the world over are always doing when ideas
of the Deity different from their own are maintained. And it is
the more surprising that Christian teachers should indulge in
this intolerant practice when it is remembered that their own
faith was blackened with this opprobrium at its first
promulgation.”

Here a long passage is quoted from _The Contest of Heathenism with Christianity_, by Prof. Zeller, of Berlin, in which we are reminded that the primitive Christians were reproached with atheism because they “did not agree with the prevailing conceptions of the Deity,” and that “Down with the atheists” was the war-cry of the heathen mob against the Christians. This suggests to Mr. Youmans the following remarks:

“It would be well if our theologians would remember these things
when tempted to deal out their maledictions upon scientific men
as propagators of atheism. For the history of their own faith
attests that religious ideas are a growth, and that they pass
from lower states to higher unfoldings through processes of
inevitable suffering. It was undoubtedly a great step of
progress from polytheism to monotheism, ... but this was neither
the final step in the advancement of the human mind toward the
highest conception of the Deity, nor the last experience of
disquiet and grief at sundering the ties of old religious
associations. But if this be a great normal process in the
development of the religious feeling and aspiration of humanity,
why should the Christians of to-day adopt the bigoted tactics of
heathenism, first applied to themselves, to use against those
who would still further ennoble and purify the ideal of the
Divinity?”

Thus, according to the professor, as the pagans were wrong and stupid in denouncing the Christians as atheists, so are the Christians both wrong and stupid in denouncing the atheistic tendency of “advanced” science; and the reason alleged is that as the pagans did not recognize the superiority of monotheism to polytheism, so the Christian theologians fail to see the superiority of the “scientific” Unknowable to the God of Christianity. Need we answer this? Why, if anything were wanting to prove that Prof. Youmans is laboring for the cause of atheism, his very manner of arguing may be regarded as a convincing proof of the fact. For, if his reasoning has any meaning, it means that as the Christians rejected the gods of the pagans, so Prof. Youmans rejects the God of the Christians; and this is quite enough to show his atheism, as he neither recognizes our God, nor has he found, nor will he ever find, another God worthy of his recognition; for, surely, the “Unthinkable” of which he speaks is not an object of recognition.

On the other hand, is it true that the history of Christianity “attests that religious ideas are a growth, and that they pass from lower states to higher unfoldings”? Does the history of Christianity attest, for instance, that our conception of God has passed from a lower to a higher state? But, waiving this, it requires great audacity to contend that the theory of the “Unknowable” and of the “Unthinkable” is an unfolding of the conception of God. We appeal to Prof. Youmans himself. A theory of natural science which would lay down as the ultimate result of human progress that what we call chemistry, geology, astronomy, mechanics, electricity, optics, magnetism, is something “unknowable” and “unthinkable,” would scarcely be considered by him an “unfolding” of science. For how could he “unfold” his thoughts in the _Popular Science Monthly_, if the subject of his thought were “unthinkable”? But, then, how can he assume that his theory of the “unthinkable” is an “unfolding” of the conception of God? God cannot be conceived, if he is unthinkable. We conceive God as an eternal, immense, omnipotent, personal Being. These and other attributes of Divinity, as conceived by us, constitute our notion of God; and this notion is as unfolded as is consistent with the limits of the human mind. But to “unfold” the conception of Divinity by suppressing omnipotence, wisdom, eternity, goodness, and all other perfections of the divine nature, so as to leave nothing “thinkable” in it, is not to unfold our conception, but to suppress it altogether.

As to the flippant assertion that the Christian conception of Divinity is not “the final step in the advancement of the human mind toward the highest conception of the Deity,” we might say much. But what is the use of refuting what every Christian child knows to be false? We conceive God as the supreme truth, the supreme good, and the supreme Lord of whatever exists; and he who pretends that there is or can be a “higher conception of the Deity” has himself to thank if men call him a fool.

We shall say nothing of “intolerant practices,” “stupid fanaticism,” or “bigoted tactics.” These are mere words. As to “the aspiration of humanity,” it may be noticed that there is a secret society that considers its aspirations as the aspirations of “humanity,” and, when it speaks of “humanity,” it usually means nothing more and nothing better than its “free and accepted” members. This “humanity” has doubtless some curious aspirations; but mankind does not aspire to dethrone God or to pervert the notion of Divinity.

Prof. Youmans accounts for “the aspiration of humanity” in the following manner:

“It cannot be rationally questioned that the world has come to
another important stage in this line of its progression. The
knowledge of the universe, its action, its harmony, its unity,
its boundlessness and grandeur, is comparatively a recent thing;
and is it to be for a moment supposed that so vast a revolution
as this is to be without effect upon our conception of its
divine control?”

This manner of arguing is hardly creditable to a professor of science; for, even admitting for the sake of argument that the knowledge of the universe is comparatively “a recent thing,” it would not follow that such a knowledge must alter the Christian conception of the divine nature. Let the professor make the universe as great, as boundless, and as harmonious as possible; what then? Will such a universe proclaim a new God? By no means. It will still proclaim the same God, though in a louder voice. For the harmony, beauty, and grandeur of the universe reveal to us the infinite greatness, beauty, and wisdom of its Creator; and the greater our knowledge of such a universe, the more forcible the demonstration of the infinite perfection of its Creator. Now, this Creator is our old God, the God of the Bible, the God to whom Mr. Youmans owes his existence, and to whom he must one day give an account of how he used or abused his intellectual powers. This is, however, the God whom the professor would fain banish from the universe. Is there anything more unphilosophic or more unscientific?

But the knowledge of the universe, from which we rise to the conception of God, is not “a recent thing.” Infidels are apt to imagine that the world owes to them the knowledge of natural science. We must remind them that science has been built up by men who believed in God. “Advanced” science is of course “a recent thing,” but it does not “constitute an important stage” in the line of real progress; for it consists of nothing but reckless assumptions, deceitful phraseology, and illogical conclusions. Three thousand years ago King David averred that “the heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands.” Has advanced science made any recent discovery in the heavens or on earth which gives the lie to this highly philosophical statement? Quite the contrary. It is, therefore, supremely ridiculous to talk of a “vast revolution” whose effect must be “to purify the ideal of Divinity.” This vast revolution is a dream of the professor.

But he says:

“Is it rational to expect that the man of developed intellect
whose life is spent in the all-absorbing study of that mighty
and ever-expanding system of truth that is embodied in the
method of Nature will form the same idea of God as the ignorant
blockhead who knows and cares nothing for these things, who is
incapable of reflection or insight, and who passively accepts
the narrow notions upon this subject that other people put into
his head? As regards the divine government of the world, two
such contrasted minds can hardly have anything in common.”

This is a fair sample of the logical processes of certain thinkers “of developed intellect.” Our professor assumes, first, that Catholic theologians are “ignorant blockheads,” that they “know and care nothing” for natural truths, that they are “incapable of reflection or insight,” and that they “passively accept” what others may put into their heads. Would it not be more reasonable to assume that a “blockhead” is a man who asserts what cannot be proved, as a certain professor is wont to do? And would it be unfair to assume that the man who “knows and cares nothing” for truth is one who beguiles his readers into error, and, when convicted, makes no amends? We would not say that the professor is “incapable of reflection or insight,” for we think that no human being can be so degraded as to deserve this stigma; but we cannot help thinking that Mr. Youmans “passively accepts” many absurd notions, for which he cannot account, except by saying that they “have been put into his head” by such “developed intellects” as Huxley’s, Darwin’s, Spencer’s, and other notorious falsifiers of truth.

Professor Youmans assumes also that our intellects cannot be “developed” enough to form a true conception of God, unless we apply to “the all-absorbing study of the method of Nature,” by which he means the conservation of energy, the indestructibility of matter, the evolution of species, and other cognate theories. This assumption has no foundation. To form a true conception of God it suffices to know that the universe is subject to continual changes, and therefore contingent, and consequently _created_. This leads us directly to the conception of a Creator, or of a First Cause which is self-existent, independent, and eternal. Modern science and “developed intellects” have nothing to say against this. It is therefore a gross absurdity to assume that the study of the method of nature interferes with the old conception of God.

A third assumption of the professor is that our notion of divine nature is “narrow.” It is astonishing that Mr. Youmans could have allowed himself to make so manifestly foolish a statement. Is there anything “narrow” in immensity? in omnipotence? in eternity? in infinite wisdom? or in any other attribute of the true God? And if our notion of God, which involves all such attributes, is still “narrow,” what shall we say of the professor’s notion which involves nothing but the “unthinkable”—that is, nothing at all?

The professor proceeds to say that if a man is ignorant and stupid his contemplation of divine things will reflect his own limitation. This is a great truth; but he should have been loath to proclaim it in a place where we find so many proofs of his own “limitation.” On the other hand, it is not from the ignorant and the stupid that our philosophers and theologians have derived their notion of God; and to confound the latter with the former is, on the part of a “developed intellect,” a miserable show of logic. The ignorant and the stupid, continues Mr. Youmans, “will cling to a grovelling anthropomorphism,” and conceive of the Deity “as a man like himself, only greater and more powerful, and as chiefly interested in the things that he is interested in.” To which we answer that the stupid and the ignorant of divine things are those who _do not know_ God, and who maintain against the universal verdict of reason that God is “unknowable.” We defy Mr. Youmans to point out a stupidity and an ignorance of divine things which equals that of him who pretends to think of the “unthinkable.” This is even worse than “to cling to a grovelling anthropomorphism.” Of course our anthropomorphism is a poetic invention of the “developed intellect,” and therefore we may dismiss it without further comment.

“The profound student of science,” he adds, “will rise to a more
spiritualized and abstract ideal of the divine nature, or will
be so oppressed with a consciousness of the Infinity as to
reverently refrain from all attempts to grasp, and formulate,
and limit the nature of that which is past finding out, which is
unspeakable and unthinkable.”

To understand the real meaning of this sentence we must remember that he who wrote it does not accept the God of theologians. Scientific men, as he has told us, claim that their studies lead them “to higher and more worthy conceptions” of the divine power than the conceptions offered by theology. It is obvious, therefore, that the “spiritualized and abstract ideal of the divine nature” to which the profound student of science is expected to rise is not the ideal recognized by theology. This is very strange; for if theology does not furnish the true ideal of divine nature, much less can such an ideal be furnished by the science of matter. Every science is best acquainted with its own specific object; and since God is the object of theology, the ideal of the divine nature is to be found in theology, not in natural science. Hence “the profound student of science” may indeed determine the laws of physical and chemical phenomena, speak of masses and densities, of solids and fluids, and of other experimental subjects without much danger of error, but he has no qualification for inventing a new ideal of divine nature. The ideal of a thing exhibits the essence of the thing; and the study of essences does not belong to the scientist, whose field is confined within the phenomena and their laws. The best scientists confess that they do not even know the essence of matter, though matter is the proper and most familiar object of their study. Yet these are the men who, according to Mr. Youmans, should know best the essence of God.

But we should like further to know how the “profound student” of advanced science will be able to rise to a “spiritualized” ideal of Divinity. The general drift of modern infidel science is towards materialism. It teaches that thought is secreted by the brain as water is by the kidneys, or, at least, that thought consists of molecular movements, and that the admission of a spiritual substance in the organism of man is quite unwarranted. How, then, can a science which rejects spiritual substances lead its “profound student” to a spiritualized ideal of Divinity? It is manifest, we think, that all this talk is mere jugglery, and the professor himself seems to have felt that it was; for he admits that the profound student of science may be “so oppressed with a consciousness of the Infinite as to refrain from all attempts to grasp and formulate and limit the nature of what is past finding out.” This last expression shows that Mr. Youmans has no ground for expecting that his profound student will rise to the ideal of the divine nature, as what is “past finding out” will never be found, and is not only “unspeakable,” as he declares, but also “unthinkable.” The profound student of science is therefore doomed, so far as Mr. Youmans may be relied on, to remain without any ideal of God. What is this but genuine atheism?

Mr. Youmans will reply that his profound student will not be an atheist, because he will feel “so oppressed with the consciousness of the Infinite.” But we should like to know how the profound student can have consciousness of what he cannot think of. And, in like manner, if the Infinite is unthinkable, how can the profound student know that it is infinite? These contradictions go far to prove that “ignorance” and “stupidity,” far from being the characteristics of Christianity, find a more congenial abode in the “developed intellects of the profound students of advanced science.”

As all errors are misrepresentations of truth, we cannot dismiss this point without saying a word about the truth here misrepresented. God is incomprehensible; such is the truth. God is unthinkable; this is the error. To argue that what is incomprehensible is also unthinkable, is a manifest fallacy. There are a very great number even of finite things which we know but cannot comprehend. For instance, we know gravitation, electricity, and magnetism, but our knowledge of them is quite inadequate. We know ancient history, though numberless facts have remained inaccessible to our research. We know the operations of our own faculties, but we are far from comprehending them. Comprehension is the perfect and adequate knowledge of the object comprehended. If the cognoscibility of the object is not exhausted, there is knowledge, but not comprehension; and as our finite intellect has no power of exhausting the cognoscibility of things, human knowledge is not comprehension, though no one will deny that it is true and real knowledge. In like manner, though we do not comprehend the infinite, yet we conceive it, and we know how to distinguish it from the finite. We know what we say when we affirm that the branches of the hyperbola extend to infinity, that the decimal division of ten by three leads to an infinite series of figures, that every line is infinitely divisible, that every genus extends infinitely more than any of its subordinate species, and the species infinitely more than the individual, etc. Thus the notion of the infinite is a familiar one among men; and when Mr. Youmans contends that the infinite is unthinkable, he commits a blunder, and every one of his readers has the right to tell him that such a blunder in inductive science is inexcusable.

Perhaps it may not be superfluous to point out, before we conclude, another fallacy of the “developed intellect” of the professor. He assumes that to form a conception of God is to limit the divine nature; for he declares that the profound student of science oppressed with the consciousness of Infinity ought reverently to refrain “from all attempts to grasp, and formulate, and _limit_ the nature of that which is past finding out.” We would inform Mr. Youmans that the notion of a thing does not limit the thing, but simply expresses that the thing is what it is, whether it be limited or unlimited. In all essential definitions some notion is included, which expresses either perfection or imperfection. When we say that a being is _irrational_, we point out an imperfection, or a defect of further perfection; whereas when we say that a being is _rational_, we express a perfection of the being. Now, since all imperfection is a real limit, it follows that all denial of imperfection is a denial of some limit, and therefore the affirmation of every possible perfection is a total exclusion of limit. Thus omnipotence excludes all limit of power, eternity all limit of duration, omniscience all limit of knowledge, immensity all limit of space. We need not add that all the other attributes of God exclude limitation, as they are all infinite. It is evident, therefore, that we can “formulate” our notion of God without “limiting” the divine nature; and that those “profound students” of nature whose “developed intellect” is “oppressed with the consciousness of Infinity” strive in vain to palliate their atheism by “reverently (?) refraining from all attempts to grasp and formulate” the nature of the Supreme Cause.

We may be told that Prof. Youmans, though he rejects the “God of theology,” admits something equivalent—viz., Infinity, the consciousness of which he feels so oppressive. He also admits that “religious feelings may be awakened” in a mind so oppressed by the thought of Infinity, and insists that “religious teachers ought in these days to have liberality enough to recognize this serious fact, remembering that human nature is religiously progressive as well as progressive in its other capacities.” Would not this show that we cannot without injustice hold him up as a professor of atheism? We reply that the accusation of atheism preferred against the tendency of advanced science has been met by the professor in such a manner as to give it only more weight, according to the old proverb which says that

_Causa patrocinio non bona pejor erit_.

He does not believe in the God of theology. In what does he believe? In the “unthinkable”! This is sheer mockery. But the unthinkable is said to be infinite. This is sheer nonsense, as we have shown. Again, the unthinkable is said to awaken religious feelings. This is written for unthinkable persons. The professor, as we have already noticed, admires the grandeur of nature, and holds it to be “boundless,” and therefore infinite. This may lead one to suspect that the material universe—the sun, the planets, the stars, heat, light, electricity, gravity, and their laws—constitute the “Infinity” with the consciousness of which the professor is oppressed. If this could be surmised, we might regard him as a pantheist. This, of course, would not better his position, as pantheism is, after all, only another form of atheism. But if nature (or rather Nature, as he writes it) is his Deity, how can he affirm that such a nature is “unspeakable” and “unthinkable”? If nature is “unthinkable,” the science of nature is a dream; and if it is “unspeakable,” all the talk of the _Popular Science Monthly_ is a fraud.

If Prof. Youmans wishes us to believe that “advanced” science does not tend to foster atheism, and that its foremost champions are not atheists, let him come forward like a man, and show that, after rejecting the God of theology and of philosophy, another God has been found, to whom “developed intellects” offer religious worship, and in whom their religious feelings are rationally satisfied. Let him give us, above all, his “scientific” reasons for abandoning the God of the Bible, in whom we “ignorant blockheads” have not ceased to believe; and let him state his “philosophic” reasons also, if he has any, that we may judge of the case according to its full merit. We need not be instructed about the “religious progressiveness” of mankind, or any other convenient invention of unbelievers; we want only to know the new God of “advanced” science, his nature and his claims. When Prof. Youmans shall have honestly complied with this suggestion, we shall see what answer can best meet his appeal to the “liberality” of religious teachers.

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A LEGEND OF DIEPPE.

A gloomy three days’ storm has prevailed all along the French coast. Dull gray clouds hide the blue vault of heaven and frown upon the tossing waters beneath. The fresh, invigorating air, remembered with delight by all who have ever been in Normandy, has given place to a damp, chilly heaviness, broken occasionally by fierce gusts of wind and rain. The fisher-boats are all in port, the small ones drawn up high on the beach, the larger securely anchored. But this is not due only to the storm. Even if it were the fairest of weather, no Dieppe fisherman would set sail to-day. It is All-Souls’ day—the feast of the dead, the commemoration of the loved and lost; and who is there that has not loved and lost? But among these simple Catholic souls one feels that the loved are never lost. The dead live still in the tender remembrance of those left behind. Tears shed in prayer for the departed have no bitterness.

But the heartless and ungrateful man who fishes to-day will be everywhere followed by his double—a phantom fisher in a phantom boat. All signs fail him, all fish escape his net. Again and again he draws it in empty. If he persist, at length he thinks himself rewarded. His net is so heavy he nearly swamps his boat in the endeavor to draw it in; and horrible to say, his catch is only grinning skulls and disjointed human bones.

At night, tossing on his sleepless pillow, he hears the ghostly “white car” rolling through the silent street. He hears his name called in the voice of the latest dead of his acquaintance, and dies himself before the next All-Souls’ day.

Spite of the bleak and rainy weather, all the good people of Dieppe, or rather of its fisher suburb, Le Pollet, are gathered together in church. Rude as it is, weather-beaten, discolored, gray-green, like the unquiet ocean it overlooks, Notre Dame du Pollet is still grand and picturesque. It has suffered both from time and desecration, as is seen by its broken carvings, empty niches, and ruined tombs. The altars are plain, the ornaments few and simple. On the wall of the Lady chapel hang two rusty chains—the votive offering, it is said, of a sailor of Le Pollet, once a slave to pirates. Miraculously rescued by Our Lady, he returned to his native place only to sing a _Te Deum_ in her chapel and hang up his broken fetters therein; then, retiring to a neighboring monastery, he took upon himself a voluntary bondage which love made sweet and light.

It is the solemn Mass of requiem, and almost noon, though the sombre day, subdued yet more by stained-glass windows, seems like a winter twilight. The church is all in deep shadow, except the sanctuary with its softly-burning lamp, and its altar decked with starry wax-lights. Black draperies hang about the altar, black robes are upon the officiating priests. The slow, mournful chant of the _Dies Iræ_, sung by a choir invisible in the darkness, resounds through the dim, lofty aisles.

Motionless upon the uneven stone pavement kneel the people, a dark and silent mass, only relieved here and there by the gleam of a snowy cap or bright-colored kerchief; for the fisher-folk, and, indeed, all the peasantry of thrifty Normandy, dress in serviceable garb, of sober colors. There is one little group apart from the rest of the congregation; not all one family, for they are too unlike. They seem to be drawn together by some common calamity or dread. First is an old woman perhaps seventy years of age, and looking, as these Norman peasants usually do, even older than her years. The full glow of light from the altar falls upon her white cap, with the bright blue kerchief tied over it. A string of large beads hangs from her bony fingers. Her eyes, singularly bright for one so aged, are raised to the black-veiled crucifix, and tears glisten upon her brown and withered cheeks. Her arm is drawn through that of a slender young woman, and near them is a little girl, round and rosy. All three are dressed nearly alike, and all say their beads, though not with the same tearful devotion. Anxiety and weariness are in the young girl’s pale but pretty face; and the child looks subdued, almost frightened, by the gloom around her.

Behind them kneels a comely matron, a little child clinging to her gown; near her two fishermen, one old and gray-haired. The other, who is young, has an arm in a sling; he kneels upon one knee, his elbow on the other, and his face hidden in his hand.

They are two households over whom hangs the shadow of a calamity, perhaps all the greater because of its uncertainty. Two months ago Jacques Payen and his son sailed for the fishery. Jacques Suchet and his cousin, Charles Rivaud, completed the crew; for Jean Suchet, disabled by a broken arm, remained at home with his grandmother and sister. The season proved unusually stormy. Two fishing-boats of Le Pollet narrowly escaped the terrible rocks of the Norman coast; and one of these reported seeing a vessel, resembling that of the Payens, drifting past them in a fog, with broken mast and cordage dragging over the side. They hailed the wreck, but heard no reply, and concluded that the crew had been swept overboard, or possibly had escaped in their boat.

Weeks had passed since this vague but terrible intelligence had reached the stricken families. Old Mère Suchet had at once received it as conclusive. She wept and prayed for the bold young fishers, the hope and comfort of her old age. Not so Manon Payen. No one dared condole with her, not even her old father, Toutain. Life hitherto had gone so well with her! Her husband loved her; her son was her pride and delight; her rosy Marie and little toddling Pierre filled her cottage with laughter and sunshine. Grief was so new and strange and frightful. What! her husband and son taken from her at one blow? No, it could not be! It was too dreadful! God _could_ not be so cruel! Besides, there were no better sailors than the Payens, father and son; none who knew the coast so well, with all its perils, its hidden rocks, and dangerous currents. Their vessel was new and strong; why should they be lost; they _alone_? Jean Pinsard was not positive it was their vessel he had seen; how could he tell in a fog? No; she was sure they were safe. They had put in to one of the islands. They would not risk a dangerous journey in stormy weather just to tell her, what she knew already, that they were safe.

To Mère Suchet’s Mathilde, the betrothed of Jacques Payen, how much better and clearer was this reasoning than the submissive grief of her pious old grandmother! Young people cannot easily believe the worst when it concerns themselves. Mathilde _could_ not pray for the repose of the souls of lover, brother, and cousin. With the passionate, impatient yearning of a heart new to affliction, she besought the Blessed Mother for their safe return. Her brother Jean did not try to destroy her hopes, though he would not say he shared them.

As time passed on and brought no news of the absent, the hearts of these two poor women grew faint and sore; but they refused to acknowledge it to one another, or even to themselves. Their days passed in feverish, and often vain, endeavors to be cheerful and busy; their nights in anguish all the more bitter because silent and unconfessed. On All-Souls’ day old Toutain and Mère Suchet had wished to have a Requiem Mass offered for the lost sailors, but Mathilde wept aloud at the suggestion, and Manon forbade it instantly, positively, almost angrily.

Manon had borne up well through the sad funereal services of the church. She smiled upon her little ones, and returned a serene and cheerful greeting to the curious or pitying friends who accosted her. All day she had carried the burden of domestic cares and duties, while her heart ached within her bosom and cried out for solitude. Now, at night, alone with her sleeping babes, the agony of fear and pain, so long repressed, takes full possession of her sinking heart. Mingled with the roar of the treacherous sea she hears the voices of husband and son, now calling loudly for help, now borne away on the fitful wind. She sees their pale faces, with unclosed eyes, floating below the cruel green water, their strong limbs entangled in the twisted cordage. Now great, gleaming fish swim around them. Oh! it is too fearful. From her knees she falls forward upon her face and groans aloud. But on a sudden she hears a stir without—a sound of repressed voices and many hurrying feet. Hope is not dead within her yet; for she springs to the window with the wild thought that it is her absent returned. No, ’tis but a group of fishermen on their way to the pier; but Pinsard stops to tell her, with a strange thrill in his rough voice, that there is a fishing-boat coming into port!

Manon screams to her father to watch the little ones—she must go to the pier—then flies out into the night. It is not raining, and she returns to snatch her wakened and sobbing babe, and wrap him in his father’s woollen blouse. She does not know when Mathilde joins her; she is scarcely conscious of the warm, exultant clasp of her hand. Jean is there, too, agitated but grave.

As they turn the angle of the village street, before them lies the open bay. It is past midnight, but the pier is crowded. There, truly, coming on with outspread canvas, white in the struggling rays of a watery moon, is _the missing ship_! They know it well. Upon the broken, pebbly shore the two women kneel to thank God; but they can only lift up their voices and weep.

“They are not safe yet,” says Jean shortly. “The wind takes them straight upon the pier. They will need all our help.”

The crowd make way instantly for the breathless women. The light-house keeper stands ready with a coil of rope. The fishermen range themselves in line, tighten their belts, and wait to draw the friendly hawser. Great waves thunder against the long pier, sending showers of spray high above the pale crucifix at the end against which the women lean. Now the moon, emerging from a light cloud, sends a flood of pale radiance upon the vessel’s deck. It is they! Jacques Payen is at the helm; young Jacques stands upon the gunwale.

The light-house keeper throws his rope; the fishermen raise their musical, long-drawn cry. Jacques catches the rope, but in silence; and silently the crew make fast.

“It is their vow!” cries Manon, darting forward among the wondering men. “They will not speak until they sing _Te Deum_ at Notre Dame for their safe return.”

Reassured, the men pull in vigorously, but to no effect. Again, and yet again, but the ship does not move. A moment since it came on swift as the wind; now it seems anchored for ever not fifty yards away. They can see plainly every object upon the deck, where the silent crew stand gazing towards the pier. Even Manon and Mathilde have seized the rope, and draw with the strength of terror. Breathless, unsteady, large drops of sweat standing upon their faces, they pause irresolute. Stretching her arms towards her husband, Manon holds out her babe.

A white mist rises out of the sea and hangs like a veil between them. Sad, reproachful voices rise out of the waves, some near at hand, others far out. An icy wind lifts the mist and carries it slowly away, clinging for a moment like a shroud around the crucifix. The cable falls slack in the strong hands that grasp it. The ship is gone—vanished without a sound; but far away echoes a solemn chorus, “Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched me.”

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ROMANCE AND REALITY OF THE DEATH OF FATHER JAMES MARQUETTE, AND THE
RECENT DISCOVERY OF HIS REMAINS.

The bold and energetic exploration by the Canadian Louis Jolliet and the French Jesuit James Marquette, in which, embarking in a frail canoe, they penetrated to the Mississippi by the Wisconsin, and followed the course of the great river to the Arkansas, gives them and their important achievement a place in American history. It was an expedition carried out by two skilled hydrographers familiar with the extent and limit of American exploration, trained by education and long observation to map and describe the countries through which they passed. Their great object was to determine the extent of the river, its chief affluents, and the nature of the tribes upon it, as well as to decide whether it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific.

In New Mexico, the advanced outpost of the Spanish colonies, some definite knowledge of the interior structure of the continent prevailed; but to the rest of the world the great watershed of the Rocky Mountains, with the valley of the Mississippi and Missouri to the east and a series of rivers on the west, was utterly unknown. Marquette and Jolliet lifted the veil and gave the civilized world clear and definite ideas. The two learned explorers floated alone down the mighty river, whose path had not been traced for any distance since the shattered remnant of De Soto’s army stole down its lower valley to the gulf.

Father Marquette was not a mere scholar or man of science. If he sought new avenues for civilized man to thread the very heart of the continent, it was with him a work of Christian love. It was to open the way for the Gospel, that the cross might enlighten new and remote nations.

No missionary of that glorious band of Jesuits who in the seventeenth century announced the faith from the Hudson Bay to the Lower Mississippi, who hallowed by their labors and life-blood so many a wild spot now occupied by the busy hives of men—none of them impresses us more, in his whole life and career, with his piety, sanctity, and absolute devotion to God, than Father Marquette. In life he seems to have been looked up to with reverence by the wildest savage, by the rude frontiersman, and by the polished officers of government. When he had passed away his name and his fame remained in the great West, treasured above that of his fellow-laborers, Ménard, Allouez, Nouvel, or Druillettes. The tradition of his life and labors in a few generations, while it lost none of its respect for his memory, gathered the moss of incorrectness.

Father Charlevoix, travelling through the West in 1721, stopped on Lake Michigan at the mouth of a stream which already bore the name of “River of Father Marquette.” From Canadian voyagers and some missionary in the West he learned the tradition which he thus embodies in his journal:

“Two years after the discovery (of the Mississippi), as he was going from Chicagou, which is at the extremity of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinac, he entered the river in question on the 18th of May, 1675, its mouth being then at the extremity of the lowlands, which I have noticed it leaves to the right as you enter. There he erected his altar and said Mass. Then he withdrew a little distance to offer his thanksgiving, and asked the two men who paddled his canoe to leave him alone for half an hour. At the expiration of that time they returned for him, and were greatly surprised to find him dead. They remembered, nevertheless, that on entering the river he had inadvertently remarked that he would end his journey there.

“As it was too far from the spot to Michilimackinac to convey his body to that place, they buried him near the bank of the river, which since that time has gradually withdrawn, as if through respect, to the bluff, whose foot it now washes and where it has opened a new passage. The next year one of the two men who had rendered the last tribute to the servant of God returned to the spot where they had buried him, took up his remains, and conveyed them to Michilimackinac. I could not learn, or have forgotten, the name this river bore previously, but the Indians now give it no name but ‘River of the Black-gown’; the French call it by the name of Father Marquette, and never fail to invoke him when they are in any peril on Lake Michigan. Many have declared that they believed themselves indebted to his intercession for having escaped very great dangers.”

Father Charlevoix’s fame as a historian gave this account the stamp of authority and it was generally adopted. Bancroft drew from it the poetical and touching account which he introduced into the first editions of his _History of the United States_.