work is distinct from the workman. By the word of Jehovah all things were created, and by his word they are upheld. They till belong lo him .as his properly, and
he does with them as he wills. They are his. inn nol in
am sens,, he. As little do the Hebrews Beem to have
the i.l.a of an order of nature distinct from the
Will and power of God. The phenomena of I, cine, and
event they referred alike to the immediate agencj ol the Almighty. Causation was with them simply <o..l acting. They thus removed the distinction between the natural and the supernatural, not. a- some modern
specula! i-:- propose, by reducing till phenomena under natural laws, but by the reverse process, resolving all int.. the immediate operation of (...d. Man. as part of God's creation, i- equally Bubjecl with the rest to his
control. Hi- lime- ami ways tire all in God's hand.
Bj God'e power .and wisdom he ha- been fashioned; by
God's g loe- he is upheld and guided; by God's law
his entire activity is to be regulated; at God's com- mand b. retires from ibis active Bphere and passes i
the unseen world, where his spun returns to him who gave ii.
Km though this simple and childlike theory of the
uni\.rse gave little scope tor speculative thinking and
inquiry, and though the Bible presents us with but little that indicates the existence of philosophic study
among the ancient Hebrews, we are not entitled to con- clude from these data that such pursuits had no exist- ence among them. It is to be borne in mind that it was foreign to the design and pretensions of the sacred writers t.. .lis.-iiss speculatively points on which they were commissioned to speak authoritatively in the name of (bid: nor must it be forgotten that we have not in the Bible the entire literature of the Hebrew people, and that, as philosophic writings would, because
not addressed to the popular mind, be precisely those most likely to be allowed to perish, it is possible that much may have been lost which, had it been presen i d, would have shown how and to what extent scientific research flourished among the Hebrews. This sugges- tion acquires force, nol only from the fact that we know- that certain utterances by Solomon of a scientific kind, probably committed to writing, have perished (1 Kings iv, 33), but also from the statement in Kccles. xii. 12, which, besides indicating that the literature of the He- brew s -.\ as more copious than whal we now possess, leads, from its connection, to the conclusion thai part of it at least was devoted to philosophic inquiry. The book of Ecclesiastes itself, as well as that of Job, may be held as proving that the Hebrew mind .lid not acquiesce wholly in simple faith, hut had. like mind elsewhere, its seasons of doubt, question, and speculation on mat- ters relating to man's condition and destiny. We may also point to Psa. xlix, lxxiii, and to many passages in the book of Proverbs, as indicating the same thing. Nor must we overlook the fact that the Hebrew is rich in terms which are appropriate to philosophic inquiry. and indicate habits of analytic research among those by whom they were used. Of these may be mentioned nirn. wisdom, often used as we use philosophy (comp. Holes, i. 13, where n~;n2 Tin might almost be ren- dered to philosophize) ; "j'2, from "("2. between, to sepa- rate, to discern, to understand, i. e. to analyze percep- tions into their component elements, so as to arrive at just notions of them, whence n:". insight, ini judgment; 'CjT and "l~ri_ to investigate, to examiiu ; n;.n. to think, to reflect; ""S. to ponder; V~\ to know, whence TV~. knowledge. To these may be added their names for the mental pari of man. H*~. irvevpa ; U3S3, 4>i'Xn » ~ r ^' anima ; Z~. icapdia, <ppi]v.
It is further to be observed that though the Bible does not present philosophic truth in a speculative form, it presents abundantly the materials out of which phi- losophies may be constructed. Philosophy thus exists in it as it exists in nature, not (to use the scholastic phraseology) in a manifest and evolute, but in a con- crete and involute slat.: and il needs only a patient collection of its statements, and the arrangement of these according to I heir meaning and relations, to I lia- ble us to construct systematic developments of them. We may thus form not onlj a theology from the Bible, but an anthropology, including physiology .and a Bys-
ie f ethics. See Poos, Fundament a Psych
Sac. Script. < 'oUecta (1769 i ; Beck, I mriss ,1. biblischen Seelenlehrt (1843); Haussmann, /'/< bSA. Lehre con Menschen (1848); Von Schubert, Gesch. der Seelt (4th ed. 1850); Hclii/.sch. System der WW. Psycfio ..I. 1861); Taylor, linn,,,- Dubitantium (1660); Bud- dffius, Tnstit. il« log. Moralis (1715); Staudlin, Lehr- buch der Moralfur T/ieologen (2d ed. 1817); Schleier- macher, Die Christlichi Sittt (1843); Harless, Christ- lich Ethik (4th ed. 1849); W'uttke. Uandb. der Christ!. Sittenlehn (2 vols. i. Set Biblk u Theology.
For the natural science of the Hebn « -. see Astron- omy, Bot amy, Medicine, Zoology, and the articles on subjects of natural history in this work, for the exact Beit n.cs. see the articles CHRONOLOGY and Nt M- r.i R.