estion, when it
occurs, is coincident with an evident deflection or exorbitance of Science
from its proper course; and that this exorbitance is sure to take place,
almost from the necessity of the case, if Theology be not present to
defend its own boundaries and to hinder the encroachment. The human mind
cannot keep from speculating and systematizing; and if Theology is not
allowed to occupy its own territory, adjacent sciences, nay, sciences
which are quite foreign to Theology, will take possession of it. And this
occupation is proved to be a usurpation by this circumstance, that these
foreign sciences will assume certain principles as true, and act upon
them, which they neither have authority to lay down themselves, nor appeal
to any other higher science to lay down for them. For example, it is a
mere unwarranted assumption if the Antiquarian says, "Nothing has ever
taken place but is to be found in historical documents;" or if the
Philosophic Historian says, "There is nothing in Judaism different from
other political institutions;" or if the Anatomist, "There is no soul
beyond the brain;" or if the Political Economist, "Easy circumstances make
men virtuous." These are enunciations, not of Science, but of Private
Judgment; and it is Private Judgment that infects every science which it
touches with a hostility to Theology, a hostility which properly attaches
to no science in itself whatever.

If then, Gentlemen, I now resist such a course of acting as
unphilosophical, what is this but to do as men of Science do when the
interests of their own respective pursuits are at stake? If they certainly
would resist the divine who determined the orbit of Jupiter by the
Pentateuch, why am I to be accused of cowardice or illiberality, because I
will not tolerate their attempt in turn to theologize by means of
astronomy? And if experimentalists would be sure to cry out, did I attempt
to install the Thomist philosophy in the schools of astronomy and
medicine, why may not I, when Divine Science is ostracized, and La Place,
or Buffon, or Humboldt, sits down in its chair, why may not I fairly
protest against their exclusiveness, and demand the emancipation of
Theology?

15.

And now I consider I have said enough in proof of the first point, which I
undertook to maintain, viz., the claim of Theology to be represented among
the Chairs of a University. I have shown, I think, that exclusiveness
really attaches, not to those who su