other things are but instrumentalities. It is one of those questions that cannot be discussed too much. It may be worn threadbare, but it cannot be shoved out of sight. The multitude of writings and publications concerning it but show how profound and universal is the interest in it. It is because of this interest that I venture to contribute a few thoughts, designed, if possible, to clear up some of the complications and remove some of the oppositions of the controversy. My purpose is not, I wish it to be understood, to smooth over any real difficulties, to bridge any natural hiatuses, or to accommodate or compromise any inherent antagonisms. Such work is always, I believe, useless, if not mischievous. Nor is it to do, what so many have essayed, to show detailed coincidences or particular correspondences between the present results of science and the testimony of the Scriptures; to demonstrate how the six days of creation answer to the epochs of modern geology; to exhibit the agreement of ethnography with mankind's descent from a single couple; to illustrate by modern hygiene the wisdom of the Levitical regulations; or to disclose, in expressions of Job, or David, or Isaiah, anticipations of modern discoveries. A flexile and ingenious interpreter, not over-scrupulous about twisting words and forcing facts, can always do this. As Prof. Huxley has said, "One never knows what exegetic ingenuity may make of the original Hebrew." In that grand storehouse of thought and imagination, that vener

able encyclopædia of all the poetry, science, history, and philosophy, in which the Jewish mind flowered under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, in that Bible whose original and proper name, we should always remember, is, the Books (τa Bißλ), not the Book-in that grand storehouse it is always possible to find plenty of parallels, more or less strong, for almost every conceivable notion. Each past generation has found there its favorite theories in Tertullian's age, the materiality of the soul; in Augustine's, the flatness of the earth; in the time of the schoolmen, the Aristotelian philosophy: fifty years ago, the cataclysmal systems of geology, the Cuvierian distinction of species, the creation from the dust and primitive enlightenment of man by direct exertion of supernatural power; to-day, it is but little more difficult to find in the same pages authority or allowance for the nebular hypothesis, the evolution theory, and the savage if not animal origin of civilized man;' to-morrow, again, the same method of interpretation may show the coincidence of the Scriptures with whatever newer discovery Science may have made, or imagined that she has made. The

1 The Rev. Mr. Mahin, for instance, in a communication to THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, p. 487, August, 1875, says: "Even the modern doctrine of evolution-Darwinism, if you please-is as nearly taught in the first chapter of Genesis as in the revelations of modern science; and spontaneous generation seems to appear on the very face of the statements of Moses as therein recorded. Read verses 20 and 24: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly,' 'And God said, Let the earth bring forth,' etc."

etc.

hunting up of such correspondences is of very little value for any permanent reconciliation between science and religion. As the Dean of Canterbury, Dr. Payne Smith, has well said, "If the wisest geologist of our days could show that there was an exact agreement between geology and the Bible, it would rather disprove than prove its truth. For, as geology is a growing science, it would prove the agreement of the Bible with that which is receiving daily additions, and is constantly undergoing modification, and ten years hence the two would be at hopeless variance." The closer the coincidence happens to be shown in this present hour, the sooner it is likely disagreement will be revealed by the advancement of science, and the present interpretation of the sacred text become obsolete and require revision. The continual varying of her interpretation, and shifting of her ground, to which Religion is necessitated, when by this method it seeks reconciliation with physical knowledge, inevitably throws discredit upon her. It makes Faith appear as a defendant, continually obliged to Science for permission to live; as a satellite reflecting the varying phases of the scientific primary, rather than as an independent power-the central, self-subsistent Sun of Righteousness.

My aim, then, contemplates none of these objects or methods. It is, instead, looking at religion and science in their broadest and most essential features,

1 P. 175, "Modern Skepticism," Lectures of the Christian Evidence Society.

to set forth the underlying unities of physical and religious knowledge; the common foundations on which they really rest; the similarities of methods, objects, and general results, which exist between them, and the actual identity of interests which binds them together, and which should be acknowledged in word, thought, and action.

CHAPTER I.

NO NECESSARY ANTAGONISM BETWEEN SCIENCE AND

RELIGION.

Is there any necessary antagonism between Science and Religion?

This is the first and main question in determining their relations. This is the question which all well-wishers of either ought carefully to examine. For myself, I find the most thorough search showing an entire absence of any essential incompatibility. An apparent and de facto conflict exists, and has existed for centuries. But there is no required and rightful opposition. For if we look straight at them, endeavoring to distinguish them from the many other things that have borne their names and claimed their dignities, what are they? What, in strictness, is science? What, exactly, is religion? There are no authoritative definitions of either. There is, probably, no unanimous agreement in either the scientific world or the religious world as to the signification of either term. Many and various definitions have been proposed. that are not imperfect. After a careful considera

There are few