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THE HEAVENLY FATHER.
Lectures on Modern Atheism.
BY
ERNEST NAVILLE,
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE (ACADEMY OF THE MORAL
AND POLITICAL SCIENCES), LATE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF GENEVA.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY HENRY DOWNTON, M.A.,
ENGLISH CHAPLAIN AT GENEVA.
--"To this deplorable error I desire to oppose faith in GOD as it
has been given to the world by the Gospel--faith in the HEAVENLY
FATHER."
_Author's Letter to Professor Faraday_ (v. p. 193).
BOSTON:
WILLIAM V. SPENCER
1867.
CAMBRIDGE:
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
PREFACE.
These Lectures, in their original form, were delivered at Geneva, and
afterwards at Lausanne, before two auditories which together numbered
about two thousand five hundred men. A Swiss Review published
considerable portions of them, which had been taken down in short-hand,
and on reading these portions, several persons, belonging to different
countries, conceived the idea of translating the work when completed by
the Author, and corrected for publication. Proof-sheets were accordingly
sent to the translators as they came from the press: and thus this
volume will appear pretty nearly at the same time in several of the
languages of Europe.
The hearty kindness with which my fellow-countrymen received my words
has been to me both a delight and an encouragement. The expressions of
sympathy which have reached me from abroad allow me to hope that these
pages, notwithstanding the deficiencies and imperfections of which I am
keenly sensible, reflect some few of the rays of the truth which God has
deposited on the earth, thereby to unite in the same faith and hope men
of every tongue and every nation.
ERNEST NAVILLE.
GENEVA, _May, 1865_.
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.
The appearance of this translation so long after that of the original
work is in contradiction to the foregoing statement of the Author, that
it would appear at nearly the same time with it. The delay has been due
to causes beyond the translator's control--in part to the difficulty of
revising the press at so great a distance from the place of publication,
the translator being resident at Geneva. This latter circumstance causes
an exception in another particular as regards this translation, the
proposal to translate the Lectures having been made to the Author, and
kindly accepted by him, during the course of their delivery at Geneva.
The mere statement by the Author of the numbers, large as they were, of
those who formed the auditories, can give but a small idea of the
enthusiasm with which they were received by the crowds which thronged to
hear them, and which were composed of all classes of persons, from the
most distinguished savant to the intelligent artisan.
It is not to be expected that the Lectures when read, even in the
original, and still less in a translation, can produce the vivid
impression which they made on those, who, with the translator, had the
privilege of hearing them delivered,--the Author having few rivals, on
the Continent or elsewhere, in the graces of polished eloquence; but the
subjects treated are, it is to be feared, of increasing importance, not
abroad only, but in England; and in fact one Lecture, the fourth, is in
a large measure occupied with forms of atheism which owe their chief
support to English authors. In that Lecture the Author shows that the
spiritual origin of man cannot "be put out of sight beneath details of
physiology and researches of natural history," and that these not only
"cannot settle," but "cannot so much as touch the question."
The same Lecture is occupied in part by a practical refutation of the
prejudice against religion drawn from the irreligious character of many
men of science. The Author's subject has led him in the present work to
confine his illustrations on this head to the question of natural
religion: but the translator will avow that a main motive with him to
undertake the labor of this translation has been the wish to prove, in
the instance of the distinguished Author himself, that men of
incontestable eminence as metaphysical philosophers may hold and profess
boldly their faith in doctrines, which many who affect to guide the
religious opinions of our youth would teach them to despise as the
heritage of narrow minds, and to cast away as incompatible with the
highest intellectual cultivation. Such doctrines are those of the fall
and ruin of man by nature, the necessity for Divine agency in his
recovery, his need of propitiation by the sacrifice of the
God-Man--_l'Homme-Dieu_. These truths are explicitly stated by the
Author in his former course of lectures--_La Vie Eternelle_,[1] in
which, while discoursing eloquently on that eternal life which is the
portion of the righteous, he does not shrink from declaring his belief
in its awful counterpart, the eternal condemnation of the wicked.
"The offence of the Cross" has not "ceased," and many finding that these
are the opinions of this Author, will perhaps lay down his book as
unworthy of their attention: yet the editor, biographer, and expositor
of the great French thinker, Maine de Biran, will not need introduction
to the intellectual magnates of our own or of any country. The
translator will be thankful, if some of those,--the youth more
especially,--of his own country, who have been dazzled by the glare of
false science, shall find in this work a help to the reassuring of their
faith, while they learn in a fresh example that there are men quite
competent to deal with the profoundest problems which can exercise our
thoughts, who at the same time have come to a conviction,--compatible as
they believe with principles of the clearest reason,--of the truth of
those very doctrines which form the substance of evangelical
Christianity. In saying this, the translator is far from claiming the
Author as belonging to the same school of theology with himself: but
differing with him on some important points, he has yet believed that
this volume is calculated to be of much use in the present condition of
religious thought in England, and in this hope and prayer he commends it
to the blessing of Him, whose being and attributes, as our God and
Father in Jesus Christ, are therein asserted and defended.
GENEVA, _November, 1865_.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A translation of this work, by an English lady, has been published
by Mr. Dalton, 28, Cockspur street.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
OUR IDEA OF GOD 1
LECTURE II.
LIFE WITHOUT GOD 43
PART I.--THE INDIVIDUAL 45