ot probable that there will be many things not
explicable by us? From our experience of the course of nature it would
appear that no argument can be brought against the possibility of a
revelation. Further, though it is the province of reason to test this
revealed system, and though it be granted that, should it contain anything
immoral, it must be rejected, yet a careful examination of the particulars
will show that there is no incomprehensibility or difficulty in them which
has not a counterpart in nature. The whole scheme of revealed principles
is, therefore, not unreasonable, and the analogy of nature and natural
religion would lead us to infer its truth. If, finally, it be asked, how a
system professing to be revealed can substantiate its claim, the answer is,
by means of the historical evidences, such as miracles and fulfilment of
prophecy.

It would be unfair to Butler's argument to demand from it answers to
problems which had not in his time arisen, and to which, even if they had
then existed, the plan of his work would not have extended. Yet it is at
least important to ask how far, and in what sense, the _Analogy_ can be
regarded as a positive and valuable contribution to theology. What that
work has done is to prove to the consistent deist that no objections can be
drawn from reason or experience against natural or revealed religion, and,
consequently, that the things objected to are not incredible and may be
proved by external evidence. But the deism of the 17th century is a phase
of thought that has no living reality now, and the whole aspect of the
religious problem has been completely changed. To a generation that has
been moulded by the philosophy of Kant and Hegel, by the historical
criticism of modern theology, and by all that has been done in the field of
comparative religion, the argument of the _Analogy_ cannot but appear to
lie quite outside the field of controversy. To Butler the Christian
religion, and by that he meant the orthodox Church of England system, was a
moral scheme revealed by a special act of the divine providence, the truth
of which was to be judged by the ordinary canons of evidence. The whole
stood or fell on historical grounds. A speculative construction of religion
was abhorrent to him, a thing of which he seems to have thought the human
mind naturally incapable. The religious consciousness does not receive from
him the slightest consideration. The _Analogy_, in fact, has and can ha