i2o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eral, profoundly ignorant of science. When we are thinking of the 

 attitude of the church we must remember that the conflict with Galileo 

 had not arisen. Calvin quotes the first verse of the ninety-third Psalm 



— The xoorld also is established, that it can not be moved 



and says : ' Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above 

 that of the Holy Spirit?' 



Such dicta of great theologians are often quoted to demonstrate 

 the existence of an age-long conflict between science and religion. So 

 to interpret them is a sad misconception of the real warfare that has 

 occupied mankind for ages. The veritable conflict has been between 

 ignorance and enlightenment, not in one field only, but in all con- 

 ceivable spheres. 



Before there can be fruitful discussion the 'universe of discourse' 

 must be defined. Things of a like kind can alone be compared. The 

 world of science relates and refers to material things moved by physical 

 forces ; and only to these. The world of religion relates and refers only 

 to immaterial things moved by spiritual energies. These worlds are wide 

 apart now. They were widely separated even in the sixteenth century, 

 and they were entirely divided for the highest thinking men even in 

 the middle ages. In either world conflicts are possible. They can 

 only take place between ideas of the same kind; between religion and 

 heresy, or between science and pseudo-science. Theologians decide the 

 issue in one world ; men of science in the other. It is the business of 

 philosophers to define and discuss the limits of each world in turn; to 

 determine the validity of conclusions. It is the privilege of poets 

 harmoniously to express imagined analogies between the action of 

 spirit on spirit and of force on matter. It is the dream of seers and 

 prophets to synthesize such analogies into a single system, mingling 

 two universes into one. Whatever may be our hope for the future, the 

 synthesis has not yet been achieved. Theologians have essayed it from 

 one direction, philosophers from another, but the essential distinction 

 remains untouched. There is a world of matter; there is a world of 

 spirit. Men live in both. Their actions are ruled by different and 

 discrepant laws. In the world of spirit the good man is safe and 

 happy, no matter what fate may befall him in the world of physical 

 phenomena. In the latter world no virtue will save the man who 

 transgresses its especial laws. Gravitation, and not goodness, decides 

 whether his falling body suffers harm or is preserved alive. 



To Calvin the pronouncement of Copernicus was sheer blasphemy. 

 It seemed to him to lie entirely within the sphere of religion. Judged 

 by the accepted standards of that sphere it was audacious heresy. To 

 Kepler the law of Copernicus lay entirely within the sphere of science. 

 It was to be accepted as true, or rejected as pseudo, science entirely by 



