für deutsche Theologie, 1860, and vol. 5: 669; Philip Smith, Anc. Hist. of East, 65, 195; Warren, on the Earliest Creed of Mankind, in the Meth. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1884.

(b) "There is no proof that the Indo-Germanic or Semitic stocks ever practiced fetich worship, or were ever enslaved by the lowest types of mythological religion, or ascended from them to somewhat higher" (Fisher ).

See Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 545; Bartlett, Sources of History in the Pentateuch, 36–115. Herbert Spencer once held that fetichism was primordial. But he afterwards changed his mind, and said that the facts proved to be exactly the opposite when he had become better acquainted with the ideas of savages; see his Principles of Sociology, 1:343. Mr. Spencer finally traced the beginnings of religion to the worship of ancestors. But in China no ancestor has ever become a god; see Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 304-313. And unless man had an inborn sense of divinity, he could deify neither ancestors nor ghosts. Professor Hilprecht of Philadelphia says: "As the attempt has recently been made to trace the pure monotheism of Israel to Babylonian sources, I am bound to declare this an absolute impossibility, on the basis of my fourteen years' researches in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions. The faith of Israel's chosen people is: 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.' And this faith could never have proceeded from the Babylonian mountain of gods, that charnelhouse full of corruption and dead men's bones."

(c) Some of the earliest remains of man yet found show, by the burial of food and weapons with the dead, that there already existed the idea of spiritual beings and of a future state, and therefore a religion of a higher sort than fetichism.

Idolatry proper regards the idol as the symbol and representative of a spiritual being who exists apart from the material object, though he manifests himself through it. Fetichism, however, identifies the divinity with the material thing, and worships the stock or stone; spirit is not conceived of as existing apart from body. Belief in spiritual beings and a future state is therefore proof of a religion higher in kind than fetichism. See Lyell, Antiquity of Man, quoted in Dawson, Story of Earth and Man, 384; see also 368, 372, 386-"Man's capacities for degradation are commensurate with his capacities for improvement' (Dawson). Lyell, in his last edition, however, admits the evidence from the Aurignac cave to be doubtful. See art. by Dawkins, in Nature, 4:208.

(d) The theory in question, in making theological thought a merely transient stage of mental evolution, ignores the fact that religion has its root in the intuitions and yearnings of the human soul, and that therefore no philosophical or scientific progress can ever abolish it. While the terms theological, metaphysical, and positive may properly mark the order in which the ideas of the individual and the race are acquired, positivism errs in holding that these three phases of thought are mutually exclusive, and that upon the rise of the later the earlier must of necessity become extinct. John Stuart Mill suggests that " personifying" would be a much better term than "theological" to designate the earliest efforts to explain physical phenomena. On the fundamental principles of Positivism, see New Englander, 1873:323-386; Diman, Theistic Argument, 338-Three coëxistent states are here confounded with three successive stages of human thought; three aspects of things with three epochs of time. Theology, metaphysics, and science must always exist side by side, for all positive science rests on metaphysical principles, and theology lies behind both. All are as permanent as human reason itself." Martineau, Types, 1:487 - "Comte sets up mediæval Christianity as the typical example of evolved monotheism, and develops it out of the Greek and Roman polytheism which it overthrew and dissipated. But the religion of modern Europe notoriously does not descend from the same source as its civilization and is no continuation of the ancient culture," — it comes rather from Hebrew sources; Essays, Philos. and Theol., 1: 24, 62-"The Jews were always a disobliging people; what business had they to be up so early in the morning, disturbing the house ever so long before M. Comte's bell rang to prayers?" See also Gillett, God in Human Thought, 1:17-23; Rawlinson, in Journ. Christ. Philos., April, 1883: 353; Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1886: 473-490.

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CHAPTER III.

SIN, OR MAN'S STATE OF APOSTASY.

SECTION I.- THE LAW OF GOD.

As preliminary to a treatment of man's state of apostasy, it becomes necessary to consider the nature of that law of God, the transgression of which is sin. We may best approach the subject by inquiring what is the true conception of

I. LAW IN GENERAL.

1. Law is an expression of will.

The essential idea of law is that of a general expression of will enforced by power. It implies: (a) A lawgiver, or authoritative will. (b) Subjects, or beings upon whom this will terminates. (c) A general command, or expression of this will. (d) A power, enforcing the command.

These elements are found even in what we call natural law. The phrase 'law of nature' involves a self-contradiction, when used to denote a mode of action or an order of sequence behind which there is conceived to be no intelligent and ordaining will. Physics derives the term 'law' from jurisprudence, instead of jurisprudence deriving it from physics. It is first used of the relations of voluntary agents. Causation in our own wills enables us to see something besides mere antecedence and consequence in the world about us. Physical science, in her very use of the word 'law,' implicitly confesses that a supreme Will has set general rules which control the processes of the universe.

Wayland, Moral Science, 1, unwisely defines law as "a mode of existence or order of sequence," thus leaving out of his definition all reference to an ordaining will. He subsequently says that law presupposes an establisher, but in his definition there is nothing to indicate this. We insist, on the other hand, that the term 'law' itself includes the idea of force and cause. The word 'law' is from 'lay' (German legen ), = something laid down; German Gesetz, from setzen, = something set or established; Greek vóμos, from véμw, something assigned or apportioned; Latin lex, from lego, something said or spoken.

All these derivations show that man's original conception of law is that of something proceeding from volition. Lewes, in his Problems of Life and Mind, says that the term 'law' is so suggestive of a giver and impresser of law, that it ought to be dropped, and the word 'method' substituted. The merit of Austin's treatment of the subject is that he "rigorously limits the term 'law' to the commands of a superior"; see John Austin, Province of Jurisprudence, 1:88-93, 220-223. The defects of his treatment we shall note further on.

J. S. Mill: "It is the custom, wherever they [scientific men] can trace regularity of any kind, to call the general proposition which expresses the nature of that regularity, a law; as when in mathematics we speak of the law of the successive terms of a converging series. But the expression law of nature' is generally employed by scientific men with a sort of tacit reference to the original sense of the word 'law,' namely, the expression of the will of a superior-the superior in this case being the Ruler of the

universe." Paley, Nat. Theology, chap. 1—"It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient operative cause of anything. A law presupposes an agent; this is only the mode according to which an agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing." "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" "Rules do not fulfill themselves, any more than a statute-book can quell a riot" (Martineau, Types, 1: 367).

Charles Darwin got the suggestion of natural selection, not from the study of lower plants and animals, but from Malthus on Population; see his Life and Letters, Vol. I, autobiographical chapter. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 2: 248-252-"The conception of natural law rests upon the analogy of civil law." Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, 333-"Laws are only the more or less frequently repeated and uniform modes of the behavior of things"; Philosophy of Mind, 122-"To be, to stand in relation, to be self-active, to act upon other being, to obey law, to be a cause, to be a permanent subject of states, to be the same to-day as yesterday, to be identical, to be one, - all these and all similar conceptions, together with the proofs that they are valid for real beings, are affirmed of physical realities, or projected into them, only on a basis of self-knowledge, envisaging and affirming the reality of mind. Without psychological insight and philosophical training, such terms or their equivalents are meaningless in physics. And because writers on physics do not in general have this insight and this training, in spite of their utmost endeavors to treat physics as an empirical science without metaphysics, they flounder and blunder and contradict themselves hopelessly whenever they touch upon fundamental matters." See President McGarvey's Criticism on James Lane Allen's Reign of Law: "It is not in the nature of law to reign. To reign is an act which can be literally affirmed only of persons. A man may reign; a God may reign; a devil may reign; but a law cannot reign. If a law could reign, we should have no gambling in New York and no open saloons on Sunday. There would be no false swearing in courts of justice, and no dishonesty in politics. It is men who reign in these matters-the judges, the grand jury, the sheriff and the police. They may reign according to law. Law cannot reign even over those who are appointed to execute the law."

2. Law is a general expression of will.

The characteristic of law is generality. It is addressed to substances or persons in classes. Special legislation is contrary to the true theory of law.

When the Sultan of Zanzibar orders his barber to be peheaded because the latter has cut his master, this order is not properly a law. To be a law it must read: "Every barber who cuts his majesty shall thereupon be decapitated." Einmal ist keinmal = "Once is no custom." Dr. Schurman suggests that the word meal (Mahl) means originally time (mal in einmal). The measurement of time among ourselves is astronomical; among our earliest ancestors it was gastronomical, and the reduplication mealtime-the ding-dong of the dinner bell. The Shah of Persia once asked the Prince of Wales to have a man put to death in order that he might see the English method of execution. When the Prince told him that this was beyond his power, the Shah wished to know what was the use of being a king if he could not kill people at his pleasure. Peter the Great suggested a way out of the difficulty. He desired to see keelhauling. When informed that there was no sailor liable to that penalty, he replied: "That does not matter,―take one of my suite." Amos, Science of Law, 33, 34-"Law eminently deals in general rules." It knows not persons or personality. It must apply to more than one case. "The characteristic of law is generality, as that of morality is individual application." Special legislation is the bane of good government; it does not properly fall within the province of the law-making power; it savors of the caprice of despotism, which gives commands to each subject at will. Hence our more advanced political constitutions check lobby influence and bribery, by prohibiting special legislation in all cases where general laws already exist.

3. Law implies power to enforce.

It is essential to the existence of law, that there be power to enforce. Otherwise law becomes the expression of mere wish or advice. Since physical substances and forces have no intelligence and no power to resist,

the four elements already mentioned exhaust the implications of the term 'law as applied to nature. In the case of rational and free agents, however, law implies in addition: (e) Duty or obligation to obey; and (ƒ) Sanctions, or pains and penalties for disobedience.

"Law that has no penalty is not law but advice, and the government in which infliction does not follow transgression is the reign of rogues or demons." On the question whether any of the punishments of civil law are legal sanctions, except the punishment of death, sce N. W. Taylor, Moral Govt., 2:367-387. Rewards are motives, but they are not sanctions. Since public opinion may be conceived of as inflicting penalties for violation of her will, we speak figuratively of the laws of society, of fashion, of etiquette, of honor. Only so far as the community of nations can and does by sanctions compel obedience, can we with propriety assert the existence of international law. Even among nations, however, there may be moral as well as physical sanctions. The decision of an international tribunal has the same sanction as a treaty, and if the former is impotent, the latter also is. Fines and imprisonment do not deter decent people from violations of law half so effectively as do the social penalties of ostracism and disgrace, and it will be the same with the findings of an international tribunal. Diplomacy without ships and armies has been said to be law without penalty. But exclusion from civilized society is penalty. "In the unquestioning obedience to fashion's decrees, to which we all quietly submit, we are simply yielding to the pressure of the persons about us. No one adopts a style of dress because it is reasonable, for the styles are often most unreasonable; but we meekly yield to the most absurd of them rather than resist this force and be called eccentric. So what we call public opinion is the most mighty power to-day known, whether in society or in politics."

4. Law expresses and demands nature.

The will which thus binds its subjects by commands and penalties is an expression of the nature of the governing power, and reveals the normal relations of the subjects to that power. Finally, therefore, law (g) Is an expression of the nature of the lawgiver; and (h) Sets forth the condition or conduct in the subjects which is requisite for harmony with that nature. Any so-called law which fails to represent the nature of the governing power soon becomes obsolete. All law that is permanent is a transcript of the facts of being, a discovery of what is and must be, in order to harmony between the governing and the governed; in short, positive law is just and lasting only as it is an expression and republication of the law of nature.

Diman, Theistic Argument, 106, 107: John Austin, although he "rigorously limited the term law to the commands of a superior," yet “rejected Ulpian's explanation of the law of nature, and ridiculed as fustian the celebrated description in Hooker." This we conceive to be the radical defect of Austin's conception. The Will from which natural law proceeds is conceived of after a deistic fashion, instead of being immanent in the universe. Lightwood, in his Nature of Positive Law, 78-90, criticizes Austin's definition of law as command, and substitutes the idea of law as custom. Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law has shown us that the early village communities had customs which only gradually took form as definite laws. But we reply that custom is not the ultimate source of anything. Repeated acts of will are necessary to constitute custom. The first customs are due to the commanding will of the father in the patriarchal family. So Austin's definition is justified. Collective morals (mores) come from individual duty (due); law originates in will; Martineau, Types, 2:18, 19. Behind this will, however, is something which Austin does not take account of, namely, the nature of things as constituted by God, as revealing the universal Reason, and as furnishing the standard to which all positive law, if it would be permanent, must conform.

See Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, book 1, sec. 14-"Laws are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things... There is a primitive Reason, and laws are the relations subsisting between it and different beings, and the relations of these to one another.... These rules are a fixed and invariable relation. . . . Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have some likewise that they

...

never made. . ... To say that there is nothing just or unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws, is the same as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not equal. We must therefore acknowledge relations antecedent to the positive law by which they were established." Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 169-172-"By the science of law is meant systematic knowledge of the principles of the law of nature-from which positive law takes its rise-which is forever the same, and carries its sure and unchanging obligations over all nations and throughout all ages." It is true even of a despot's law, that it reveals his nature, and shows what is requisite in the subject to constitute him in harmony with that nature. A law which does not represent the nature of things, or the real relations of the governor and the governed, has only a nominal existence, and cannot be permanent. On the definition and nature of law, see also Pomeroy, in Johnson's Encyclopædia, art.: Law; Ahrens, Cours de Droit Naturel, book 1, sec. 14; Lorimer, Institutes of Law, 256, who quotes from Burke: "All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory. They may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance of original justice"; Lord Bacon: "Regula enim legem (ut acus nautica polos) indicat, non statuit." Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law, 64; H. C. Carey, Unity of Law.

Fairbairn, in Contemp. Rev., Apl. 1895: 473-"The Roman jurists draw a distinction between jus naturale and jus civile, and they used the former to affect the latter. The jus civile was statutory, established and fixed law, as it were, the actual legal environment; the jus naturale was ideal, the principle of justice and equity immanent in man, yet with the progress of his ethical culture growing ever more articulate." We add the fact that jus in Latin and Recht in German have ceased to mean merely abstract right, and have come to denote the legal system in which that abstract right is embodied and expressed. Here we have a proof that Christ is gradually moralizing the world and translating law into life. E. G. Robinson: "Never a government on earth made its own laws. Even constitutions simply declare laws already and actually existing. Where society falls into anarchy, the lex talionis becomes the prevailing principle."

II. THE LAW OF GOD IN PARTICULAR.

The law of God is a general expression of the divine will enforced by power. It has two forms: Elemental Law and Positive Enactment. 1.

Elemental Law, or law inwrought into the elements, substances, and forces of the rational and irrational creation. This is twofold: A. The expression of the divine will in the constitution of the material universe; this we call physical, or natural law. Physical law is not necessary. Another order of things is conceivable. Physical order is not an end in itself; it exists for the sake of moral order. Physical order has therefore only a relative constancy, and God supplements it at times by miracle.

....

Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 210-"The laws of nature represent no necessity, but are only the orderly forms of procedure of some Being back of them. .... Cosmic uniformities are God's methods in freedom." Philos. of Theism, 73—“ Any of the cosmic laws, from gravitation on, might conceivably have been lacking or altogether different. No trace of necessity can be found in the Cosmos or in its laws." Seth, Hegelianism and Personality: "Nature is not necessary. Why put an island where it is, and not a mile east or west? Why connect the smell and shape of the rose, or the taste and color of the orange? Why do H2O form water? No one knows." William James: "The parts seem shot at us out of a pistol." Rather, we would say, out of a shotgun. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 33-"Why undulations in one medium should produce sound, and in another light; why one speed of vibration should give red color, and another blue, can be explained by no reason of necessity. Here is selecting will."

Brooks, Foundations of Zoology, 126-"So far as the philosophy of evolution invoives belief that nature is determinate, or due to a necessary law of universal progress or evolution, it seems to me to be utterly unsupported by evidence and totally unscien tific." There is no power to deduce anything whatever from homogeneity. Press the button and law does the rest? Yes, but what presses the button? The solution crys