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

main traditions of Christendom; nay, that if
successful in establishing his conclusions, he must revolutionize, to a
large extent, the 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