SCIENCE AND RELIGION AS ALLIES. 697 



tific thought of to-day. " The great deeds of philosophers," says 

 Prof. Huxley, " are less the fruit of their intellect than of the direc- 

 tion of that intellect by an eminently religious state of mind." 



Consider the characteristics demanded in the successful study of 

 Nature, and we shall discern the spiritual source whence these physi- 

 cal triumphs come. 



One of the first requisites in the inductive method is the hum- 

 ble-mindedness that will completely submit itself to the evidence of 

 the facts. "Access to the kingdom of man, which is founded on 

 the sciences," Bacon aptly says, " resembles that to the kingdom of 

 heaven, where no admission is conceded except to children." 



Another condition of success is the spirit of industry that is un- 

 swerved by love of ease or idea of labor's dishonor. Another, again, 

 is the candor that will look on all sides of a case, and listen to every 

 objection consecration to truth as the primary object. These are the 

 qualities which men of science set forth as the requisites for walking 

 within the veil of the temple of Nature. 



But what else are these than the very graces of Christianity ? 

 Take the childlike mind that the founder of the inductive method 

 demands : it is just what Christ enjoins. Take the fearless love of 

 truth that seeks the absolute facts the cause behind the cause. How 

 long would it hold on its way did not spiritual aspiration ever feed 

 its secret springs with the insatiable hunger after perfection ? Take 

 that diligence in labor and honorable estimation of work w r hich is 

 one of the essential instruments of scientific work, and ask what is 

 the impulse that has endowed modern Christendom with it. "Labor," 

 as a German writer of weight has well pointed out, " was considered 

 by our heathen forefathers a dishonor ; and even in the present day, 

 where the gospel is not preached, the stirring disposition, the as- 

 siduity, the spirit of enterprise in the people, is disproportionately 

 less. The duty and dignity of work is one of the priceless gifts to 

 modern science of him who said, ' My Father is working up to this 

 time, and I work.' " 



Or consider that interest in Nature that is such a powerful spring 

 of physical inquiry. Consider that sacred claim of his vocation 

 which the true servant recognizes such a sense of it as leads a 

 Lyonnet to spend his life counting the 40,000 muscles in a caterpil- 

 lar's body ! Is it not the Christian spirit, the belief, that is, in the 

 brotherhood of man and the duty of self-sacrifice the feeling of 

 filial loyalty to a Divine Father, all of whose works are significant, 

 and all of whose service is noble that, as much as or more than any- 

 thing else, has given birth to it ? 



It is a singular fact that the Greek and the Roman, in spite of their 

 great intellectual acuteness, accomplished so little in the penetration 

 of Nature's secrets. "With the strong love of the beautiful that dis- 

 tinguished the one, and the profound sense of law that marked the 



