character, and attribute to it only a predictive import, it affords a powerful support to our third head of argument. It tells us that violence will be met by violence, and bloodshed engender bloodshed; in other words, that private vengeance and Lynch law will inevitably ensue, unless the calm dictates of retributive law be invoked to punish crime, and establish order and justice.

Nor do we think it irrelevant, as a part of the scriptural argument, to refer to the fact that capital punishment was, at a later period, incorporated into the Jewish Law by the immediate direction of God himself. Not that we imagine that the municipal law of the Jewish Commonwealth is in the least degree binding upon us, but we allude to this fact for the purpose of repelling the unfounded imputation that capital punishment is in its own nature a wrong and vindictive thing. We can not suppose that God would lend his sacred sanction, under any circumstances, to a practice that was intrinsically and essentially a wrong.

The New Testament, moreover, is far from being silent on the subject. Not to mention other allusions and intimations, there is that most pregnant and significant declaration with regard to the Christian magistrate-" He beareth not the sword in vain,"-a declaration which, turn it as you will, can mean nothing less than that he is invested with the ultimate. power of life and death. But it is on the scope of the Scriptures, more than on any particular passages, that we would rely for the sanction of this practice. The important fact to which we would direct attention is, that the Bible fully recognizes the complete idea of retributive justice. It clearly supposes that there may be such a thing as punishment in the strictest sense, not a mere corrective process for the benefit of the criminal, but punishment for the ends of law and justice, without any reference to the good of the criminal. It holds out the idea, in more than a single passage, of a retribution that is final and irremediable-a destruction of the wicked that is utter and entire, and herein it establishes a principle that undermines the whole scheme of our new reformers. The fundamental error of the opposers of capital punishment lies in their entirely rejecting and discarding all

idea of retribution in the strict and proper sense of the term. They do not allow that punishment may be exemplary and final, as well as reformatory and corrective. They demand. that the criminal shall be treated, not with a primary reference to the sacred dictates of justice and retributive law, but with a leading.regard to his own private advantage. They degrade the necessary and awful functions of justice to the weak and feeble purposes of a mere school of reform. But the very fact that the strict idea of retribution is so clearly incorporated in the Scriptures demonstrates its propriety and use in our present earthly relations. The administration of human law is only a part of that universal administration of law over which God presides; and all the instances of earthly retribution are but the shadowings forth of that higher and more perfect retribution that is to occur in the future world. The ideas of justice, penalty and retribution, as they are found in our earthly relations, have their correlative ideas under the divine government. They are subservient indeed to this higher and more exalted purpose; and he who seeks to undermine them in the one case, whether he knows it or not, is virtually undermining them in the other. And this is another strong and fundamental reason why we choose to take our stand on the side of law and retributive justice. We feel that in doing so we are on the basis of the Scriptures themselves.

There is nothing, indeed, that we so much deprecate and deplore as the degeneracy of the times on this very subject, and we shall hail it as a most auspicious omen for good, when a disposition shall be discovered to come back to that healthy tone of moral sentiment which the Bible seeks to inspire and to preserve on these vital points. We hesitate not to avow that we look with apprehension to the disposition that is manifested to depart from scriptural principles on this subject. We deprecate the rash experimentalism of the age. One word of Divine wisdom is more to us than all the plausible theories of human invention; and we could not forbear to lift up a feeble voice of warning against that gulf of uncertainty and confusion, that abyss of destruction, into which we are in danger of being carried by the speculations of a most fascinating and delusive pseudo-philanthropy.

ART. V. PHYSICAL LIFE THEORIES AND RELIGIOUS

THOUGHT.

By DR. LIONEL S. BEALE.

[From the Contemporary Review for April, 1871 ]

IF the progress of science is of necessity associated with the decline of religious belief, the hostility of religious persons to science would be pardonable, if not reasonable and justifiable, for it has never been proved that scientific information can, with advantage to the individual or society, be substituted for religious teaching. Moreover, of a given number of persons, but a small minority would be found capable of gaining real proficiency in any branch of science, while it must be admitted that almost every one would make at least considerable progress in religious knowledge. Although it is an open question whether the character is necessarily or almost certainly improved by the study of science, the influence of religious thought for good in innumerable instances, and at every period of history, will not be seriously disputed.

But is it true that religion and science are hostile? That reason and faith are irreconcileable? That a man who has the gift of science must ever be wanting in the gift of faith? That the truths of religion are parted from the truths of science, and that he who devotes himself to scientific work, can take little interest in, and be little influenced by, religious thought?

Many, I fear, would answer these questions affirmatively. Some would go so far as to say that the tendencies of religous thought and the tendencies of scientific thought are in opposite directions, and that every attempt hitherto made to reconcile the teachings of science and religion has failed. Nevertheless I venture to think, and in this paper I shall endeavor to give reasons for the conclusion, that the reply to all these questions should be made in the negative.

Sufficient distinction has not, I think, been drawn by many who devote their lives mainly to religious thought and work, between science, and the statements put forward in her name

-between scientific demonstration, and facts said to have been demonstrated by investigation called scientific-between the actual discovery of new truths proved beyond all question, and mere assertions sufficiently dogmatic, dictatorial, and positive, but resting upon authority instead of upon evidence.

Authoritative assertion damages the interests of science, and arrests the progress of truth, for science can never acknowledge any authority whatever. Her truths rest simply upon evidence, and the more carefully and the more minutely the evidence is sifted, the greater is the gain to science. Unfortunately, however, in every stage of scientific progress, instances are not wanting in which mere positive assertions have been implicitly believed, and, when these have been proved to be erroneous, new assertions as positive have taken their place, to be in their turn refuted and replaced by others. And this must ever be if people persist in accepting scientific statements upon authority alone, and refuse to study the grounds upon which the statements are said to rest.

A vague feeling of uncertainty has long prevailed in the minds of many highly educated persons, with regard to the bearing of recently asserted scientific facts upon the beliefs which constitute the very foundations of religion. Rather than take the trouble even to ascertain the meaning of an assertion put forth, not a few accept it at once, and with it the state of mental perplexity which its acceptance involves. But surely it is most necessary that before a new doctrine or a new philosophy is violently opposed, because its influence on religious thought is likely to be prejudicial, or warmly accepted for the very same reason, or for a very different reason, it should be ascertained whether it rests upon demonstrated facts, or is a mere dictum, guess, or conjecture, of some authority.

I have sometimes suspected that some theologians in these days were prepared to concede too much, nay, to concede what will eventually prove to be the key of the position, regarded from the intellectual side. The proposition seems to have been accepted by many as proved, that the laws governing the living are the same as those which the non-living

obeys. But such a conclusion can not reasonably be entertained at this time, nor is it likely that it will ever be proved to rest upon facts. The chivalrous generosity and largeheartedness of some minds, an intense love for everything that seems to favor progress, a desire to encourage investigation and work, and a natural hatred of narrow-mindedness and party prejudice, have perhaps led some thoughtful persons to accept for demonstrated facts, without the slightest investigation or inquiry, some of the most extraordinary statements ever promulgated in the name of truth, and to believe in all seriousness general propositions which, regarded from a scientific standpoint, are untenable, as, for example, "the sun forms living beings," "the lifeless passes by gradations into the living," "the difference between a living thing and a dead one is a difference of degree," "a dead thing may be revivified," and many more quite as astounding. Such doc. trines rest upon no scientific evidence whatever, and those who believe them receive them upon trust, and do not venture to inquire concerning the facts upon which they are said to rest.

Of all departments of scientific investigation, the one which concerns itself with the study of living beings is that which is calculated to exert the most serious influence upon religious thought, and it is especially to this I venture now to direct attention. It is indeed in connection with views concerning the nature of life that the most distinct antagonism between religion and science will be found to obtain.

Thoughtful men have allowed their judgment to be swayed by what seemed to them to be new discoveries of paramount importance, although they have not unfrequently experienced the greatest difficulty in grasping the meaning of the terms in which the discovery has been announced, and have not perhaps fully appreciated the consequences which must necessarily flow from the premises they have accepted. For some years past there has been in England a powerful current setting in one direction, into which men have allowed themselves to be drawn, against the promptings of their feelings and sometimes against the dictates of their reason. They have been told in language more forcible than convincing