CHRISTIAN THOUGHT.

ACCORD BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH.

[The Anniversary Address delivered before the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, August 25th, 1886.]

BY RANSOM B. WELCH, D.D., LL.D.,

Professor in Auburn Theological Seminary.

W

HETHER Philosophy is in accord with Faith has been persistently questioned and denied.

The proper answer to this question is of great moment to every one. It is specially so to us, for it involves the raison d'etre of this Institute-the right of the American Institute of Christian Philosophy to exist.

In this paper I wish to indicate some of the salient points of contact between Philosophy and Faith-some of the salient points, for the paper must be too brief to include all-to indicate these, for the paper will be too brief, indeed, to do full justice to any.

In view of the important question at issue, let us trace the meaning and method and purpose of Philosophy, and the validity and value of its conclusions.

In each and all of these five particulars, I think we shall find a firm accord between Philosophy and Faith. Faith, as the term is employed in this paper, is both theistic and Christian. The Saviour said significantly to the disciples, "Ye believe in God; believe also in Me," thus combining practice and precept.

In this brief statement, He gives us the vital principles of faith from which as a centre may be described the entire circuit of faith.

pass through this stage of development in relation to the individual, and therefore the arguments that prove the existence of a God must come before those that prove the genuineness of revelation.

The arguments in this direction are derived from many sources and are familiar to all present. I shall speak of but one, viz., the evidence of design in nature, the intelligent adaptation of means to the attainment of results. Such an adaptation on a larger scale and in greater variety than could be explained by mere coincidence, must be accepted as the work of an intelligence sufficiently wise to conceive the plan and sufficiently powerful to put it into execution. And such an intelligence subjecting all nature to its control, and therefore superior to nature, supplies the fundamental conception of God.

All this appears so self-evident that it would seem that no argument was required in its support; and yet by a strange process of mental jugglery modern scepticism would endeavor to supplant an intelligent First Cause by a system of unintelligent or natural forces, the origin of which forces it does not attempt to explain. It exalts the instrument into the place of the user, as if the house were built by the saw and the hammer, and not by the carpenter; and by an inversion of reasoning the sceptic calls upon science to aid him in his argument. While each new discovery but adds a new illustration of the harmony of design, it is held up as a new proof that all things are the result of chance.

The tendency to this mode of reasoning, which is now so especially prominent, makes it worth while to repeat the arguments against it, and though I can say nothing which has not been said many times before, yet there are certain considerations drawn from organic life which have interested me peculiarly and to which I will briefly advert.

An individual belonging to the higher forms of animal life is the most perfect machine which it is possible for the imagination to compass. In its construction nearly every principle in physical science is illustrated. It was not until science had reached a considerable degree of development that the laws of refraction of light were discovered. But no sooner were they known than

it was obvious that what it had taken the human mind centuries to evolve had all those centuries been practically applied in the construction of the eye. Almost within the memory of some here present, laborious research and ingenious experimentation succeeded in establishing the laws governing the diffusion of gases, but only to find that ever since lungs began to breathe and blood to circulate, these laws had dictated the structure of the respiratory and circulating organs. It seems only yesterday that the law of osmosis was announced as a brilliant discovery, yet modern physiology shows that the entire scheme of nutrition is based upon this law, which regulates the movement of fluids of different densities through membranous tissues placed between them. The radiation and conduction of heat are subject to laws which have been formulated only in modern times, yet the first warm-blooded animal created was constructed in conformity with them. And so I might go on almost indefinitely, showing that the human mind in its farthest reaches has only succeeded in discovering what had been discovered and utilized ages before. Judging of the future by the past we may confidently predict that if any new principle or law shall be discovered in physical science, it will be found to have been already recognized and applied in the structure of the higher organisms.

While thus it is evident that there was an intelligence by which what man has discovered was known and utilized before man existed, there is also abounding evidence of careful and exact plans for bringing about definite proposed results. For an example drawn from biology; the object proposed is the distribution of nourishment to every portion of the body, and the removal from every portion of the body of effete and worn-out material. The means employed embrace an elaborate system of organs by which food received from without is reduced to the fluid. known as blood, which blood is conveyed through vessels dividing and subdividing into millions of tiny branches which permeate the remotest structures, conveying to them the nutriment which they require and receiving in return the products of waste and decay. The blood is then returned by another set of vessels to the lungs, where the waste matter is thrown off into the air, and the purified blood again begins its round.

In the course of the circulation thus briefly sketched there are required a great variety of mechanical devices for overcoming special difficulties. Many of these are most wonderful in the efficiency of their action and the ingenuity (if I may reverently use the term) of their construction. To begin with, the propulsion of the blood through such minute channels, requires a tremendous force. This is supplied by the central organ, the heart, the sum of whose energy is equal to lifting over fifty pounds with each pulsation and there are on an average about seventy pulsations each minute. There are practically two hearts placed side by side and contained in a common envelope-the right, which receives the impure blood and propels it through the lungs, and the left, which receives the purified blood from the lungs and forces it through the whole system. Each ventricle is a hollow muscle which, when relaxed, receives the blood into its cavity, and when fully distended, contracts upon the blood and drives it forward. But the blood must pass out by a different orifice from that by which it entered, and this requires a valve at the orifice of entrance to prevent a backward current. Now a valve having a rigid bony framework would interfere with the expansion and contraction of the ventricle. The valve is therefore composed on the left side of two, and on the right side of three thin, membranous, pliable flaps, which are easily separated by the inward current of blood flowing between them, but which swing together and close the orifice the moment the ventricle contracts. But the natural tendency of these thin, soft curtains would be to turn inside out with the pressure of the blood behind them, and to flap backward and forward with each change of the direction of the current. To prevent this a number of fine inelastic cords are attached by one end to the edges of the curtain, and by the other to the wall of the ventricle. But this provision would not be sufficient if it stopped here, for as the ventricle contracted, the two ends of these cords would be brought nearer to each other, and the cords would be slackened just when they ought to be tense. To meet this difficulty the cords are not attached directly to the walls of the ventricle, but to the tips of little muscular cones which project from the walls. As the walls contract these cones contract, and the

tip of each cone is pulled back just as much as its base is pushed forward. Thus the point at which the cord is attached remains stationary, and the cord maintains its tension, although the cavity across which it is stretched is greatly reduced in size.

Truly chance is an accomplished mechanician!

But in following the course of the circulation other remarkable provisions are encountered. The brain demands a large amount of blood to carry on its ceaseless work. The supply comes from the heart by a very short and direct route. But the force of the heart's contraction is so great that if the vessels led to the brain in a perfectly straight course, a severe shock would be comunicated to this very delicate organ with every pulsation of the ventricle. To obviate this each of the main arteries, at one point in its course, bends abruptly at a right angle, runs in a horizontal direction for about half an inch, and then bends again at a right angle and proceeds upward in its course to the brain. The effect of this jog in the course of the vessel is to partly arrest each wave of blood before it reaches the brain, and thus the walls of the vessels receive the shock which the brain escapes. But such a continuous hammering would be more than the unsupported walls of the vessel could endure, and so the bend is made to occur just at the base of the skull, and the horizontal portion of the vessel together with both the angles is neatly lodged in a little case of bone.

A further study of the vessels shows that the veins in which the current flows in an upward direction, that is, against gravity, are supplied with numerous valves at short distances from each other, which help to sustain the weight of the column of blood. But those veins in which the current habitually flows in a downward course have no valves.

Whoever has watched the fingers of the musician flying over the keys, each one of the ten doing its own special work with unerring accuracy and lightning-like rapidity, and yet all working together in perfect harmony, must have admired the wonderful skill which planned the human hand. It is probably the most perfect mechanical device of which we have any knowledge. No machine ever invented by human skill has approached it in the variety, complexity and precision of its move