James Mccosh

The Scottish scholar James McCosh (1811–94) was a champion of the Free church, a successful and much-published philosophy professor at Belfast for 16 years, and an energetic and innovative President of Princeton University from 1868 to 1888. The Religious Aspect of Evolution was published in 1888, and this second edition from 1890 took account of A. R. Wallace's latest work, Darwinism (1889, also reissued in this series). McCosh, who already in Ireland had developed a 'theory of the universe conditioned by Christian revelation' was one of very few clergymen in America who defended evolutionary theory. He impressed upon his students that while there seemed to be great truth in Darwin's theory, the work of the coming age must be to separate that truth from the error springing up around it. This would enable scholars to follow and even embrace science while also retaining their faith in the Bible.

This 1850 edition of The Method of The Divine Government is the Scottish philosopher and clergyman James McCosh's influential account of how God's providence, which in his opinion is an unquestionable fact, governs the world in both a physical (external) and in a moral (internal) sense. The latter is particularly connected to the many layers that make up man's conscience. This second edition, which consists of four parts ('books') and an appendix, differs from the original version as McCosh pays far more attention to first principles than to fundamental ones. He seeks to pinpoint God's character and probes the depths of man's conscience (First Book) and in the following he delves into the physical aspects of God's government, paying particular attention to Comte's Positivism. McCosh devotes part three to a detailed analysis of the human mind and moral nature and finally in the fourth part he reconciles God and man.