CONFLICT OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION." 73 



God's will to man for his moral guidance, if necessary at all, was ne- 

 cessary before the rise of natural science. Men could not, more espe- 

 cially, do without some knowledge of the unity of God and the unity 

 of Nature until these great truths should be worked out by scientific 

 induction. Perhaps they might never have been so worked out ; there- 

 fore, a revealed " book of origins " has a right to precedence in this 

 matter. Nor need it in any way come into conflict with the science 

 subsequently to grow up. Science does not deal so much with the 

 origin of Nature as with its method and laws ; and all that is neces- 

 sary on the part of a revelation to avoid conflict with it is to confine 

 itself to the statement of phenomena and to avoid hypotheses. This 

 is eminently the course of the Bible. In its cosmogony it shuns all 

 embellishments and details, and contents itself with the fact of crea- 

 tion and a slight sketch of its order ; and the sacred writers in their 

 subsequent references to Nature are strictly phenomenal in their 

 statements, and refer everything directly to the will of God, without 

 any theory as to secondary causes or relations. They are thus de- 

 cided and positive on the points with reference to which it behooves 

 revelation to testify, and non-committal on the points which belong to 

 the exclusive domain of science. 



What, then, are we to say of the imaginary " conflict of science 

 and religion " of which so much has been made ? Simply, that it re- 

 sults largely from misapprehension and misuse of terms. True relig- 

 ion, which consists in practical love to God and to our fellow-men, can 

 have no conflict with true science. They are fast allies. The Bible, 

 considered as a revelation of spiritual truth to man for his salvation 

 and enlightenment, can have no conflict with science. It promotes 

 the study of Nature, rendering it honorable by giving it the dignity 

 of an inquiry into the ways of God, and rendering it safe by separat- 

 ing it from all ideas of magic and necromancy. It gives a theological 

 sanction to the ideas of the unity of Nature and of natural law. The 

 actual conflict of science, when historically analyzed, is fourfold : 1. 

 With the Church; 2. With theology; 3. With superstition ; 4. With 

 false or imperfect science and philosophy. Religious men have, no 

 doubt, from time to time identified themselves with these opponents, 

 but that is all ; and much more frequently the opposition has been by 

 unwise or bad men, more or less, it may be, professing religious ob- 

 jects. 



Organizations styling themselves " the Church," and whose war- 

 rant from the Bible is often of the slenderest, have denounced and 

 opposed new scientific truths, and persecuted their upholders ; but 

 they have just as often < en unced the Bible itself, and religious doc- 

 trines founded on it. 



Theology claims to b If one of the sciences, and as such it is 



necessarily imperfect an< <>;ressive, and may at any time be more 



or less in conflict with < sciences. But theology is not religion, 



