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58

The "Origin of Species."

[LECT.

descent of man, which, startling as it then was even to most scientific men, has now received at the hands of those best able to judge, a very general although in some cases a qualified assent. At its first statement, and for some time afterwards, many theologians found in it a contradiction of certain popular conceptions which had been worked into the web of their religious faith. The tradition that the several types of animal life as we now find them proceeded direct from the hand of the Creator was, like the flatness of the earth, a popular notion rather than a legitimate deduction from the Biblical narrative. But in the minds of some religious men it had become a part of their conception of a creator, and they held fast to it, apparently with the idea that if it were abandoned there would be no room left for belief in God. Darwin himself had indeed anticipated this objection, and replied to it very truly, when at the end of his work on the Origin of Species he said :"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved." But it was not until after much profitless struggling that this wise judgment of his was generally admitted to be just; and indeed, though the din of this recent controversy no longer fills the air, we may still hear an occasional exchange of shots between outlying combatants. But I think I am scarcely anticipating events when I say that the Christian Church is settling down with the assurance that whatever be the ultimate verdict on the views of Darwin, it is a verdict which the scientific world alone must give, without help or hindrance from preconceived notions, and that, be the result what it may, the position of Christianity is no whit disturbed.

Once more let me briefly repeat that this whole subject of

II.]

Christian Natural Philosophers.

59

the historical relations of science to religious thought finds its key in the fact that where there has been conflict or opposition it has proceeded from ideas which are not essential parts of the Christian system. "The real contest is between one phase of science and another; between the more crude knowledge of yesterday and the less crude knowledge of to-day." The abandonment of traditional ideas has been a process of purification and restoration, not of mutilation. It has been aptly said that every individual Christian and every organization of Christians may be regarded as a mirror which reflects the figure of Christ and His Church. But the mirror even at its best is warped and dull, and the image is distorted and dim; and if we see in it features whose divinity we cannot recognise, our first care should be to turn from the image to the object, where, haply, we shall find nothing to repel. If history shows us, and there is no denying it, that the Church's public relations to science have been in great measure a series of blunders which were sometimes crimes, it also shows that, bad as these have been, they have never had the power to alienate from Christianity the men whose names shine brightest in the annals of scientific discovery. Not to mention a host of minor workers, we find amongst the Christians Newton, who supplied the key to the solar system; Boyle, "the father of modern chemistry"; Dalton, who discovered the laws of chemical combination; Young, one of the great developers of the undulatory theory of light; Faraday, the prince and pattern of all experimentalists. And if we extend our view to the present day, we find that very many of the most distinguished students and the ablest interpreters of the dynamics of nature take their place on the same side. You will admit, even those of you to whom Christianity is no more than a name, that a religious

1 Fiske, loc. cit.

60

The "Popular Science" fallacy.

[LECT.

system which, distorted and misapplied though it has been, has shown itself capable of acceptance by many of the greatest intellects of all ages, past and present, has a marvellous vitality and power.

Apart from the historical attitude of the Church, another cause is at work to produce this erroneous idea of conflict. A few really scientific writers and a numerically mighty host of quasi-scientific ones, who have not accepted Christianity, have referred to it in their writings or lectures in a way which has led many people to suppose that the rejection of Christ is a necessary result of pursuing the scientific method. Partly because of their anti-christian bias, such writings and lectures have received an amount of popular notice which more purely scientific ones cannot command. The latter appeal to a smaller public-outside of which we generally find the most grotesquely distorted estimate of scientific men, their works, and the tendencies of their enquiries. It you were to ask a hundred ordinary Englishmen or Americans to name the man whom they regard as the special representative of physical science, ninetynine of them, perhaps, would name Professor Tyndall. Now I have no wish to say a word, and it would be highly unbecoming in me to say a word, derogatory of Dr. Tyndall's standing as a contributor to the solid structure of scientific truth, and there is no one but must admire the clearness and eloquence with which he can exhibit its beauties to those who have no eyes for its technical details; but at the same time it is the simple truth that his position with respect to Christianity is, amongst the greater living English physicists, not a representative but rather a singular and isolated position. Put him in one pan of the balance, and put Thomson, Stokes, Joule, Tait and Stewart in the other, and those of you who know anything of the recent history of physics will have no difficulty in deciding on which side is the weight of scientific authority. In

II.]

Science does not make men irreligious.

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this connection I may appropriately quote the words of a distinguished chemist, Dr. J. H. Gladstone, himself a fine example of the not rare combination of scientific eminence with earnestness of Christian life. In denying the popular fallacy that there is a divorce between scientific and religious thinkers, he says: "A singularly large proportion of the highest men of science of this and preceding times have been devout believers, or at least have acknowledged the truth of the scriptures; while if we descend to men of the second and third ranks we find, at least in my experience, about the same proportion of Christians as in most other professions."1

Of course it is not suggested that scientific study will make a man religious: my purpose in these remarks is the much humbler and more rational one of showing that it does not make men irreligious. Whether a scientific man is religious or irreligious, he is so not because he is scientific. Of this we have abundant evidence of a kind whose value can be appreciated even by those who know little of science and less of Christianity, the evidence, namely, which is presented in the lives and opinions of scientific men. If by some instances they teach us that knowledge of nature has gone along with unbelief in religion, by many more do they prove that there is no essential discord between the spirit of enquiry and the spirit of reverence, and that the wisest of men's sons have often put aside their wisdom, and become even as little children, that they might know the truth.

Two men have recently died, in each of whom science has sustained a loss which it is easier to deplore than to estimate, and who, at once by their likeness and unlikeness, illustrate what I have just said. One, Clifford, died so early that his achievements were potential rather than actual; the other, Maxwell, was taken

1 Trans. Vict. Inst. Vol. I, p. 391.

62

Clifford and Maxwell.

[LECT.

from the midst of a life of splendid performance. Of the two, Clifford was an unbeliever in Christianity; Maxwell an earnest Christian. If the life of Clifford gives a new illustration of the old truth that man cannot by searching find out God, the life of Maxwell may be said to show that man cannot, by searching, find God to be impossible. He knew, as few men have ever known, the possibilities of matter, and penetrated into the mysteries of nature more profoundly than many men can even follow. It is difficult to speak of his services to science or the depth of his philosophic insight in language which a general audience would not think extravagant and unreal. Just before his death he said that he had examined every system of atheism he could lay hands on, and had found, quite independently of any previous knowledge he had of the wants of men, that each system implied a God at the bottom to make it workable. He went on to say that he had been occupied in trying to gain truth, that it is but little of truth that man can acquire, but it is something to 'know in whom we have believed." The life of such a man as Maxwell would suffice to give the lie to the popular fallacy that science conflicts with religion, even if he stood alone; in fact, however, his place is with Newton and Faraday, alike as a pillar in the temple of natural knowledge, and a stone in that grander temple whose corner-stone is Christ.

To a certain extent, however, we may cast ourselves loose from the fetters of authority, whether ecclesiastical or scientific, and examine, each man on his own account, the bearings of modern scientific thought on belief. I shall therefore endeavour to place before you, with as much clearness as the shortness of time at our disposal will permit, some of those more recent developments of scientific discovery and speculation which may be expected to come into contact with religious thought, and in

1Nature, Nov. 13, 1879.

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