In the previous lectures of the present course we have dealt with the doctrines which form the strength of Islam, and have also referred to some of the defects in that system of religion, defects so numerous and so serious as to neutralise the truths with which they are indissolubly associated in the Religion of Muhammad, and to render it a curse to humanity and not a blessing. We now pass on to the consideration of the Origin of Islam and the attitude in which it stands to the revealed Religion of Christ.

§ I.—The great philosophical poet of Rome, following the teaching of the Greek¹

Islam must have had an Origin.

sage whom he regarded as his master, declares that nothing² can spring from nothing. And although we are far from wishing to draw from this principle the conclusions which Lucretius himself does, yet no