The Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 | Page 3

religious thinking of the civilization amid which he moves; and yet he moves steadily and quietly forward, calm as Marius amid the ruins of Carthage, not stopping to consider what Biblical men will do with his facts; never more than touching upon their religious bearings; intent only on ascertaining what the facts are, and what they teach. This, we say, is the spirit and temper of the true philosopher--this betokens the genuine son of science. As well might we demand of Watt, or Fulton, or Davy, or Brewster, or Faraday, in pursuing their inquiries into the nature and laws of steam, electricity, galvanism, or light, to be careful that their discoveries impinge not on the teachings of religion or the creed of orthodoxy, as to demand of Lyell to investigate the antiquity of man in humble deference to the well-established belief of the whole Christian world that he has no such antiquity. Not a bitter thing is said in the whole book against any traditional belief; the Scriptures are scarcely more than alluded to; he seems scarcely conscious that he is attempting to establish conclusions at variance with the cherished creeds of vast multitudes of men. To some this may seem the callousness of infidelity; to us it seems the sublime composure of science. To him, the fact in the case is everything; and he is content to leave it to work its own results.
What now, on the other hand, have been the spirit and temper of the religious press and the pulpit touching the progress of science, and especially its encroachments upon the ancient landmarks of traditional belief? We are sorry to be compelled to say that, with some honorable exceptions, the spirit manifested by religious journals and clergymen generally, has not been worthy of unqualified admiration. In many instances they have shown a dogged determination to hear nothing on the subject. Assuming, with absolute confidence, not only that the Scriptures are what the Church claims them to be, but that their interpretation of them is infallible, they have affected to ignore all the findings of science, and to treat them, in their bearing on Biblical interpretation, as profane intermeddling with divine things. They seem to imagine that their safety consists in not seeing danger, like the ostrich hiding its head in the sand, and supposing that thereby its whole body is protected. In other instances, while professing a willingness to hear--to seek truth--to not be afraid of the light--to boast of science even as the handmaid of religion--they have shown a disposition to decry the alleged discoveries of science, to ridicule its supposed facts, to make light of a whole concatenation of evidence, to prate of the uncertainties and vacillations of science, to sneer at 'sciolists,' or 'mere men of science,' to warn against the 'babblings of science' and 'philosophy falsely so called,' and meantime they have betrayed a nervous sensitiveness with regard to certain alleged discoveries and facts coming to the popular ear. They affect to sneer at the 'wise week' of the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and to turn the proceedings of that body into ridicule, by caricaturing the importance attached to some minor organ of the human or animal frame, in the determination of specific identity or difference. While absolutely ignorant of the true state of the case as it stands in the scientific world, they thunder from the pulpit in the ears of their people--a position where they are safe from reply--crudities and monstrosities of science at which the humblest member of the aforesaid Association would smile. In other instances, with a most unfortunate or misguided zeal, they would fain compel Christian faith to override and traverse all those great laws of evidence which regulate human belief in other matters. They do not dispute the facts of science when clearly established--they will concede to them an existence as facts in their own sphere--but they hold the Scriptures, as being inspired and infallible, to be transcendent and paramount, and not to be affected by any possible combination of facts. That is to say, if the Scriptures teach the unity of the race, or the universality of the deluge, or the modern origin of man--and if they understand them to teach these things, they do teach them for them--they hold that no amount of evidence which science may adduce can be of any avail, even though it might amount to absolute certainty, did not the Scriptures stand in the way. You may believe the facts of science, if you choose, but the Scriptures must be believed to the contrary notwithstanding. If science does not agree with the Scriptures, so much the worse for science--that is its own affair. This is the sentiment, distinctly uttered not long since by a learned