Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

great philosopher:-"I shall be ready and willing to hear you on that subject when I get the assurance that you have given some time and attention to it; I have given both to it, and you have not." On the other hand, Tyndall objects to Newton's meddling with the subject, as, from his life-long devotion to studies of other kinds, he could not be well fitted for it. We may, I think, fairly object to the whole modern Pantheistic school of German scientific men on the same grounds. They mostly can have little knowledge of the subject, and, no doubt, are content to accept, at second hand, the destructive criticism of Strauss and his school.

These, I think, are sufficient reasons in common sense, if not commonplace, to account for the alleged antagonism of men of science to revealed religion, while there is a long roll of illustrious names, from Newton to Faraday, and many now living, which proves that the antagonism is not in the nature of things. There is also something to be said on the other side. For the thought of a Creator is not the only cause of distraction to the mind of the man of science; there are all the numerous temptations to premature hypotheses and speculation, to which the infidel is just as liable as the believer. Nay, more so. For it is possible for the latter to free his mind from all bias, and push back creative interference as far as the search for phenomenal causes can possibly demand, and then he is in a better position for calm judgment than the fanatical infidel Evolutionist, for example, who is compelled to find a natural origin of life, and thus is tempted to fantastic speculation on the spontaneous generation of completely organised living beings, with a distinct life history in a few hours, from fermenting chemical compounds. Even on the descent of man, the believer can rise to a calm and more unprejudiced stand-point than the Häckelian. Witness G. Henshall, who protests against any á priori prejudice such as is embodied in the "Simia quam similis,

turpissima bestia, nobis" of the poet against the Darwinian theory. "If God," he says, "adopted such a method, who are we that we should complain? The potter hath power over the clay. I believe, with Mr. Darwin, that the evolution of animals and plants was God's method of creation." But, at the same time, he maintains that there is no sufficient evidence that man was made in that way, but some to favour Wallace's idea of an exceptional process.* This is a frame of mind far more likely to arrive at truth than the Dogmatic Pantheistic belief of Haeckel. Witness, also, Darwin himself, who has never faltered one moment in the search for natural causes which destroy the evidence of design, and yet is ready to accept a supernatural origin of living matter in default of other, while, no doubt, he would be ready, on sufficient evidence, to push such farther back.

There are also the moral causes of disturbance to be taken into account; for envy, jealousy, hatred, and prejudice are as rife among men of science as among other men, and these dim the pure love of truth, which is the essential condition of all discovery in science. Where are the qualities to counteract these most likely to be found? Surely among the men whose natural development of the higher mental emotions is greatest, that is, those desiring honesty, honour, truth, love, esteem, veneration, and beauty, all which seek an ideal, and to which the highest ideal is presented in Christian Dogmatics. Hence we may expect to find such men among the believers more abundantly than among the non-believers of the scientific body. Whoever thinks that moral causes count for little in the progress of science, has little acquaintance with its history. It would be easy to shew that all the hostility to new truths proceeds from want of self-sacrifice, and want of development of truth to the height of perfect candour, a height which can never be attained by philosophy,

* Christian Apologist, 1877, p. 220.

F

but only by Christian faith, although seldom indeed reached, even by believers therein. May we not, therefore, rather invert the position spoken of above? and say, No one can truly become a master in science unless he first takes up the cross, and blends indissolubly the perfect love of truth, as a moral duty, with the love of truth in nature, which is the foundation of all true scientific method.

[graphic][graphic]

Caulerpa Mexicana, Sond.

Caulerpa plumaris, Agardh.

[graphic]

J. CHARD, DEL.

« AnteriorContinuar »