Another instance, in a quite different profession, of a mind guided by a principle similar to that of Dr. Chalmers is presented by the illustrious philosopher, Mr. Faraday. One of a small body of Christians knit together in bands of love and peace, and himself the very embodiment of that high morality and love of kind, so much preached about however practised, no question appears to have crossed his mind as to the validity of the evidences on which the gospel claims rest; but, hating pretence and ever loyal to truth, he saw, with habitual clearness of judgment, that a revelation, dealing with what man cannot himself discover, must be taken, if true, implicitly as delivered. In his lecture on Mental Education before Prince Albert, in the year 1854, he said: "High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, however exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that the self-education I am about to commend in respect of the things of this life, extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be improper here to enter into this subject further than to claim an absolute distinction between religious and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing to apply those mental operations, which I think good in respect of high things, to the very highest. I am content to bear the reproach. Yet, even in earthly matters, I believe that the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal Power and Godhead; and I have never seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher things concerning his future which he cannot know by that spirit."
So that of himself, apart from revelation, Mr. Faraday's position was agnostic. Had he seen reason to reject revelation he would not have been a deist, any more than
Dr. Chalmers. There is an Eternal Power, but what it is man cannot divine. Of God or of a future state man himself can tell nothing. And the reproach from the votaries of most popular religions, which Mr. Faraday refers to, will apply equally to the agnostic who submits to revelation with his "simple belief," and to the agnostic who sees reason to reject it. Nothing would have been more utterly abhorrent to Mr. Faraday than to have his name paraded and referred to, as a Christian, in the sense in which it is alluded to in such books as the Unseen Universe, or, since his death, by many of the clergy in their sermons.
Any communications, from those interested in the subject of this treatise, addressed to me, care of the Publishers, will be gladly received and attended to.
L. L.
1st July, 1877.