religious should believe) than reveal the more clearthe existence and character of their Maker. It may reveal him as acting in ways that we had not supposed. It may compel Theology to revise its schemes. But this revision Religion must look upon as received from God's own hand, and simply bringing us nearer the divine reality and truth. He who confounds the march of intellect with the operations of the devil, evidently inclines to trace his own origin to Satan rather than to believe the word of Scripture, that man was made in the image of God, and that God saw all the works that he had made, and behold they were good. To the intelligent Theist, the record which the geologist deciphers in the rocks is a revelation written by the same divine finger as that other revelation which the theologian reads in the Psalms of David or the letters of Paul. To the enlightened Christian there is truth to be learned about God everywhere in the material and moral universe; and no religious studies can be regarded as complete or satisfactory that neglect or ignore that grand source of divine instruction which God's handiwork presents to us.

CHAPTER II,

CAUSES OF THE ACTUAL ANTAGONISM OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

RELIGION and Science, then, have no good cause for antagonism, but rather for amity and sympathy. Why, then, should they have had so many apparent conflicts; why should there be so much jealousy, suspicion, and ill-feeling, between scientific and religious bodies?

But the main ones are

There are many causes. these three: First and chief, ignorance. Few of the religious have understood religion. They have been familiar, of course, with its practical applications; the forms of worship; the moral and philanthropical duties which it has demanded. They have studied carefully Scripture texts, and writings of the fathers, and the creeds of the councils; but about the fundamental principles of religion, its real grounds, limits, and proper domain, there has been a great lack of knowledge.

Similarly, few scientific men have really comprehended science. Facts of chemistry, of astronomy, of geology, they have learned with wonderful

thoroughness; but the principles of scientific investigation, its capabilities and limits, they have known little of. Physicists speak familiarly of scientific method, but "they could not," says Prof. Jevons,1 "readily describe what they mean by that expression. Profoundly engaged in the study of particular classes of natural phenomena, they are usually too much engrossed in the immense and ever-accumulating details of their special sciences, to generalize upon the methods of reasoning which they unconsciously employ." Prof. Jevons's words find a noticeable illustration in the fact that the only considerable treatises upon scientific method, or the principles of physical inquiry which have been written in the present century, Mill's "Logic of the Inductive Sciences," Whewell's "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences" and "History of Scientific Ideas," and Jevons's own "Principles of Science," are all the works of metaphysicians rather than of physicists, of mental philosophers rather than natural philosophers. And if few, either of the religious or the scientific world, have really understood the principles and proper limits of their own studies, still fewer have understood the principles and proper sphere of the other. Prof. Trowbridge, in a recent number of THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, called attention to the insufficient acquaintance of

1 Preface to "The Principles of Science," by W. Stanley Jevons, Professor of Logic and Political Economy in Owens College, Manchester, England.

ministers of religion with science. He quoted the courses of study presented in our principal theological schools, and showed how very small a measure of attention was given to physical studies, and how absurdly some preachers deliver their ignorant ipse dixits upon scientific topics. Although theologians are continually declaring, that the most dangerous enemy of religion to-day is science, they seem to have gained no realizing sense of the fact, and what it demands of them. They still imagine that the battle of the Evidences is to be fought on the field of ecclesiastical history, scriptural exegesis, and metaphysical postulates. They still practise with dictionary and concordance, as if the age of crucible and spectroscope had not come in. The great need of our theologians to-day is, to recognize the mighty turn which modern thought has taken, the new base of operations which it demands, and the new weapons it requires. As Hugh Miller said years ago, "Before the churches can be prepared, competently, to deal with the infidelity of an age so largely engaged as the present in physical pursuits, they must greatly extend their walks into the field of physical science." A hasty reconnaissance now and then to gather information to justify an attack is not what is wanted, but a careful and impartial examination of the scientific domain, and its relations with the religious realm. Even "from men who admire the progress of science," says Prof. Trowbridge, "I often hear sermons" which "do incalculable damage, by

drawing wide and unwarrantable inferences and conclusious from scientific facts."

Equally inadequate is the acquaintance of men of science with religion. If there are among the clergy parsons so impervious to modern knowledge that they still believe that the earth is flat and immovable, and that the fossils of the Silurian period are the remains of creatures drowned in the Flood, there are likewise those who claim to be men of science who are so ill-informed and undeveloped in spiritual things as to doubt the usefulness of devotion, look on Christianity as a work of fraud, and religion and morality as mere products of fear and custom. It does not need to be argued, I think, that religion is not a thing to be understood at a glance by every one who is not a born fool. Spiritual things need special, systematic, thorough study for their clear comprehension just as much as physical things; and the man of science who essays, because he is skillful with acids and alkalies, or has made notable discoveries about sound, or heat, or protozoa, to pronounce judgment on the problems of prayer and providence, or the knowability of God, such a man is just as likely to talk nonsense as the minister who denounces Darwinism without having read a tithe of the scientific expositions and evidence of it. Yet it is not an uncommon occurrence, of late, to see men of science indulge in such intellectual escapades. Dazzled by their marvelous achievements in measuring the stellar spaces and recovering the his