'with a fringe of gold' King Jamie called Fife, for the interior lacks beauty, save in the rare river valleys, while the coast is a long run of ancient towns, still full of touching ruins of ecclesiastical art. From Culross round to St. Andrews the Fringes of Fife' are picturesque and rich in archæological interest. Mr. Geddie offers in 'The Fringes ' of Fife a lively and poetic itinerary, well worth following. Mr. Stevenson has also written, on this theme, one of his most alluring essays. As Cicero said of Athens, every 'stone you tread on has its history.' The people are a bluff, independent, and humorous race; caddies, fishermen, ploughmen, ministers, have contributed to Mr. Mackay's store of Fife proverbs: by the way, there is a difference between an aphorism, or maxime, and a proverb, though Mr. Mackay seems not to take the distinction (p. 261). Mr. George Meredith is full of aphorisms, not of proverbs,' as Mr. Mackay remarks of him. Proverbs, as Mr. Mackay sees, are of the folk, popular and antique. Aphorisms are of the literary individual. Into the poetry of Fife poets, which is rich and various, space does not permit us to follow Mr. Mackay. But the poems are usually literary and individual; less learned parts of Scotland-the Lowland and Highland Borders-have furnished most of our old ballads. To be sure Lady Wardlaw, a Fifeshire dame, wrote Hardyknute,' in itself a demonstration that she could not have written Sir Patrick Spens.' For generals and painters Fife brags Scotland, and she gave birth to Braid, the founder of hypnotism. In brief, we have not room even for a summary roll call of the Worthies of Fife, among whom her witches also must go unrecorded. All these things are written in the book of her sheriff, and, with more of detail, in Mr. Millar's larger volumes. For recent times we have the abundant 'Cronykils' of A. K. H. B. Unluckily most persons of leisure, when in Fife, neglect her rich romance for the absorbing game of golf. The loss is their own.

VOL. CLXXXIV. NO. CCCLXXVIII.

F F

ART. VIII.-1. The Reign of Law. By the DUKE OF ARGYLL, K.G., K.T. London: 1866.

2. The Unity of Nature. By the same author. London: 1884. 3. The Philosophy of Belief; or, Law in Christian Theology. By the same author. London: 1896.

THE

HE publication this year of the Duke of Argyll's 'Philo'sophy of Belief; or, Law in Christian Theology,' completes the series of works projected by the author, with the view of including the main problems encountered by religious faith when accepting the grand advance of science during the last half-century. The publication of the latest volume affords a suitable occasion for a general survey of the three related works whose titles are placed at the head of this article.

'Law in Christian Theology,' the subsidiary title of the volume just published, gives the index to its contents. The three volumes present severally a distinct area of investigation; unitedly they include an inquiry of comprehensive range, well suited to meet the intellectual demands of our times.

The modern conception of cosmic history is well expressed in 'The Reign of Law.' The phrase supplies the key to all that is known of the conditions of existence, of the secret processes of Nature, and of the marvellously complex appliances by use of which familiar facts are capable of interpretation. When the results of scientific inquiry are combined, the conception which has become fixed in modern thought is that of orderly sequence depending on fixed conditions which co-operate towards securing a recognised end.

In so far as the common intelligence has gained a consistent representation of the universe as a whole, from the facts scientifically ascertained, The Unity of Nature,' always admitted, is recognised as it has never till now been possible for men to contemplate it. The human mind has, indeed, never been in doubt that our sphere of personal activity is within a defined and orderly system; it has invariably cherished the conception of the unity of the whole combination of things lying within compass of common observation. Thus it has happened that the great body of the people have readily accepted the discoveries of scientific research, and they have done so on an intellectual basis, closely related to their own daily experience. The newly received thoughts are only the expansion of earlier concep

tions, and not in any degree at variance with their essential meaning. Hence it happens that the real difficulties of our day are felt most urgently only when men come to consider how their ultimate beliefs, perennial sources of joy and hope, can be retained and vitally co-ordinated in a mind quickened and enriched by recent discoveries. These difficulties have proved great and serious to men deeply imbued by the scientific spirit; in some respects most testing to those profoundly swayed by religious faith and sentiment. In the earlier stages of advance within the scientific epoch, specialists were less troubled with the difficulties involved in attempting to harmonise knowledge and faith. They were chiefly concerned with the new things opening before their eyes. For a quarter of a century it was enough to observe, record, and publish results. For the quarter of a century following, it became necessary to consider how knowledge and belief could be brought into harmony.

When the difficulties of the task were fully appreciated, it was inevitable that the exponents of discovery and the defenders of faith should find themselves in opposite camps, and that the age should prove in a considerable degree an unsettling one for the people. How naturally the two sections of trained intellects set themselves in array for battle is shown by the mere designation of the work falling to them severally, for the one company were banded as the exponents of the new, the other company were the defenders of the old. The subsequent history is familiar; the results are only beginning to appear.

There is but one sense in which the new displaces the old that is as knowledge supplants ignorance, as science is clear gain to the intelligent life, a possession to be retained and valued. From the nature of the case, therefore, new truth does not displace old truth. New truth is acquisition, clear gain, an accession to thought and life. If only we see and remember that truth is a unity, each enlargement of its area will illustrate this in a grander way, dispelling the dread of advancing science. But in the escape from ignorance, in the acquisition of fresh knowledge, we undoubtedly displace old hypotheses; we learn in how many ways our suppositions as to the causes of things and the processes for their accomplishment have been at fault. There are, however, no class distinctions in such experience; the new is new for all, and the reconstruction of thought and fancy becomes a common demand. Thus it is inevitable in the history of intelligence, that after new

knowledge there must come new faith, for these two are inseparable. That we have had a period of Agnosticism has its explanation otherwise than in a surrender of faith. No one professes Agnosticism as an end; for there is ever faith in a further advance, belief in the intelligibility of things unexplained, and this is the denial of Agnosticism as a terminus ad quem. Agnosticism is no more a settled result than a halt for the night is the abandonment of a journey of exploration. When occupied with a deliberate survey of the gains of science, nothing is more obvious to us than this, that no new truth supplants the old truth. The old is still the primary, that which is most obvious to observation, or essential to intelligence from its first dealing with the problems of existence.

Of the fundamental conditions of our rational life the Duke of Argyll makes full account. He sees that if the unity of Nature is beyond question, the unity of knowledge and faith follows of course. Agnosticism, no more than scepticism, can be a settlement of reason's demands. Progress in knowledge may bring on us a large task in the form of readjustments; but one thing which cannot appear in its train is the decay of faith. To know more and believe less is impossible. The agnostic's place, and experience, and work are temporary. They pass into the rear as matters of history, and are soon shadowy enough in the distance.

A wonderful change has passed over the intellectual world in the course of the thirty years which separate the publication of 'The Reign of Law' from 'The Philosophy of Belief.' Discoveries which were being announced have expanded largely; acquisitions have become in considerable measure common property. The two camps and their conflicts, which at an early stage absorbed public interest and awakened anxiety in many minds, have ceased to interest. Soldiers of former days have gone back to their place as citizens; and the old weapons of attack and defence even begin to seem antiquated. While the world is busy as ever, some are furbishing up the old weapons to place them in the armoury, there to remain objects of curiosity. Faith has been unsettled and resettled; now, when all has come and gone, unbelief itself is sorely troubled by the demands of The teaching of Nature is no longer dubious; the only thing which perplexes man is himself, and our companionship with this perplexity will not soon be closed. The mysteries of intelligence offer a last retreat for Agnosticism; a perplexing hiding place, too, when we consider how

warranted was the saying of the prophet of Chelsea, emerged from the solitudes of Craigenputtock-Thou art an unknowable individual.'

The Reign of Law,' now in its nineteenth edition, is the Duke of Argyll's most popular work. So it will remain. It is the book by which the author will continue best known, and that by which he will in the future, as in the past, render the greatest service to his countrymen. We are not in this suggesting a disparaging judgement of the recently published work, which is a more elaborate treatise. Quite otherwise must this judgement be taken. It is because the early book presents the fundamental positions that it is so valued, because it stands naturally first as its author places it, and because it opens up to the popular view the region of investigation which awakened the interest belonging to the early stages of scientific advance. Its title expresses the scientific conception of modern times, and the work itself illustrates the idea with great aptness and fulness of reference. It is in this first volume we have the author's interesting discussion of the flight of birds, into the study of which he had been led by his father, who was assisted in his observations by Hart and Bryson. Our author shows to great advantage in this field of natural history, and repeatedly throughout these three volumes records a series of observations open only to one dwelling, as the Duke does, in a wooded country, by long stretches of inland sea, and who also has the additional advantage of frequent wanderings over large expanses of moorland. We have thus a valuable observation when he directs attention to the fact that it is amongst birds whose habitat is in the open plain that the law of assimilative colouring prevails.*

The main positions of the earliest of the three books, as these bear on the author's general conclusions, may be briefly indicated, so enabling the reader to carry through a study of the main line of discussion. The definitions of 'Law' constitute the preliminary to all that is subsequently contended for. Passing by an observed order of facts,' and 'a constant order' under the action of some force or forces, and identification of the force under a recognised name, such as gravitation,' we at length reach the sense in which Law is habitually used in Science-a number of forces combined for attainment of special ends-'combination for 'the accomplishment of purpose.' It is in such combina

*

Reign of Law, 5th ed. p. 181.

+ Ibid. P. 79.