FIRST PART. CHAPTER I. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE. Supposed conflicting claims of Philosophy and Religion.According to a common opinion, Philosophy and Theology are sister sciences, so closely allied that it is often difficult to make a distinction between them. Every person must hold some opinions relative to each; and these opinions form two mutually dependent creeds, which may be, in a greater or less degree, peculiar to himself, and of which the action and reaction are so nearly equal, that it is often difficult to determine which is the parent of the other. Every theory respecting the origin and first principles of human knowledge must bear a close relation to that subject in regard to which knowledge is of the highest value, the doctrine of God, duty, and immortality. The religion of the Greeks and Romans, so far as it existed in a definite and consistent form, that is, as it was conceived by enlightened and thinking men among them, was, wholly drawn from their philosophical tenets, or, more properly speaking, it was identical with those tenets. And so it has been in modern times. Skepticism in philosophy and skepticism in religion, if not the same thing, at least usually go together. |