History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science

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Title: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science
Author: John William Draper
Release Date: February, 1998 [EBook #1185] [This file was first posted on February 15, 2003] [Note: The original 1998 posting was misfiled, hence the odd dates.]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE ***

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science
By John William Draper
This eBook was prepared by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software

HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE
BY JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M. D., LL. D. PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, AUTHOR OF A TREATISE ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, HISTORY OF THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE, HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, AND OF MANY EXPERIMENTAL MEMOIRS ON CHEMICAL AND OTHER SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS

PREFACE.
WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and America, must have perceived that there is a great and rapidly-increasing departure from the public religious faith, and that, while among the more frank this divergence is not concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more dangerous secession, private and unacknowledged.
So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can neither be treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot be extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force. The time is rapidly approaching when it will give rise to serious political results.
Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world. Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only souvenirs are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing in the silent crypts of churches on their tombs.
That a crisis is impending is shown by the attitude of the great powers toward the papacy. The papacy represents the ideas and aspirations of two-thirds of the population of Europe. It insists on a political supremacy in accordance with its claims to a divine origin and mission, and a restoration of the mediaeval order of things, loudly declaring that it will accept no reconciliation with modern civilization.
The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is the continuation of a struggle that commenced when Christianity began to attain political power. A divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man. But our opinions on every subject are continually liable to modification, from the irresistible advance of human knowledge.
Can we exaggerate the importance of a contention in which every thoughtful person must take part whether he will or not? In a matter so solemn as that of religion, all men, whose temporal interests are not involved in existing institutions, earnestly desire to find the truth. They seek information as to the subjects in dispute, and as to the conduct of the disputants.
The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other.
No one has hitherto treated the subject from this point of view. Yet from this point it presents itself to us as a living issue--in fact, as the most important of all living issues.
A few years ago, it was the politic and therefore the proper course to abstain from all allusion to this controversy, and to keep it as far as possible in the background. The tranquillity of society depends so much on the stability of its religious convictions, that no one can be justified in wantonly disturbing them. But faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take place. It then becomes the duty of those whose lives have