and his views of divine things. (4.) Consequently the duty of a theologian is not to interpret Scripture, but to interpret his own Christian consciousness; to ascertain and exhibit what truths con- cerning God are implied in his feelings toward God : what truths concerning Christ are involved in his feelings toward Christ ; what the feelings teach concerning sin,. redemption, eternal life, etc., etc. This method found its most distinguished and influential advocate in Schleiermacher, whose " Glaubenslehre " is constructed on this principle. By Twesten — his successor in the chair of Theology in the University of Berlin — it is held in greater subjection to the nor- mal authority of Scripture. By others, again, of the same school, it has been carried out to its utmost extreme. We are at present, however, concerned only with its principle, and neither with the details of its application, nor with its refutation.
§ 5. The Inductive Method.
It is so called because it agrees in everything essential with the inductive method as applied to the natural sciences.
First, The man of science comes to the study of nature with cer- tain assumptions, (i.) He assumes the trustworthiness of his sense perceptions. Unless he can rely upon the well-authenticated tes- timony of his senses, he is deprived of all means of prosecuting his investigations. The facts of nature reveal themselves to our fac- ulties of sense, and can be known in no other way. (2.) He must also assume the trustworthiness of his mental operations. He must take for granted that he can perceive, compare, combine, remember, and infer ; and that he can safely rely upon these mental faculties in their legitimate exercise. (3.) He must also rely on the. certainty of those truths which are not learned from experience, but which are given in the constitution of our nature. That every effect must have a cause ; that the same cause under like circumstances, will produce like effects ; that a cause is not a mere uniform antecedent, but that which contains within itself the reason why the effect occurs.
Second, The student of nature having this ground on which to stand, and these tools wherewith to work, proceeds to perceive, gather, and combine his facts. These he does not pretend to man- ufacture, nor presume to modify. He must take them as they are. He is only careful to be sure that they are real, and that he has them all, or, at .least all that are necessary to justify any inference which he may draw from them, or any theory which h^ may build upon them.
10 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. L— Method.
Third, From facts thus ascertained and classified, he deduces the laws by which thej'^ are determined. That a heavy body falls to the ground is a familiar fact. Observation sliows that it is not an isolated fact ; but that all matter tends toward all other matter ; that this tendency or attraction is in proportion to the quantity of matter ; and its intensity decreases in proportion to the square of the distance of the attracting bodies. As all this is found to be universally and constantly the case within the field of observation, the mind is forced to conclude that there is some reason for it ; in other words, that it is a law of nature which may be rehed upon beyond the limits of actual observation. As this law has always operated in the past, the man of science is sure that it will operate in the future. It is in this way the vast body of modern science has been built up, and the laws which determine the motions of the heavenly bodies ; the chemical changes constantly going on around us ; the structure, growth, and propagation of plants and animals, have, to a greater or less extent, been ascertained and established. It is to be observed that these laws or general principles are not derived from the mind, and attributed to external objects, but derived or deduced from the objects and impressed upon the mind.
A. The Inductive Method as applied to Theology. The Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the man of sci- ence. It is his store-house of facts ; and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches, is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches. In the first place, he comes to his task with all the assumptions above men- tioned. He must assume the validity of those laws of belief which God has impressed upon our nature. In these laws are included some which have no direct application to the natural sciences. Such, for example, as the essential distinction between right and wrong; that nothing contrary to virtue can be enjoined by God ; that it cannot be right to do evil that good may come ; that sin deserves punishment, and other similar first truths, which God has imjilanted in the constitution of all moral beings, and which no objective revelation can possibly contradict. These first princi- ples, however, are not to be arbitrarily assumed. No man has a rifht to lay down his own opinions, however firmly held, and call them " first truths of reason," and make them the source or test of Christian doctrines. Nothing can rightfully be included under the category of first truths, or laws of belief, which cannot stand the tests of universality and necessity, to which many add self-evi-