SCIENCE AND RELIGION AS ALLIES. 701 



was the inventor of the gamut, and the first who instituted a school 

 of music. The monks, it is claimed by high authorities, " were the 

 parents of Gothic architecture, the inventors or improvers of the im- 

 plements used in painting, the discoverers and preparers of some of 

 the finest colors." " As architects, as glass-painters, as mosaic-work- 

 ers, they were," says Mrs. Jameson, "the precursors of all that has 

 yet been achieved in Christian art." Many of the distinguished 

 pioneers of science belonged to the Church, or were educated in it. 

 Among the alchemists, the forerunners of our chemists, Roger Bacon, 

 Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Raymond Lully, were ecclesias- 

 tics. Giordano Bruno in his early life was a Dominican priest ; Gas- 

 sendi and Copernicus held church offices, the former that of Professor 

 of Theology, and afterward prevdt of a cathedral, and the latter a 

 canon ry and archdeaconship, and both remained faithful churchmen 

 throughout their lives. Kepler was educated at the school of the 

 monastery of Maulbron, and Boerhaave studied at Leydeu for the 

 sacred profession. This list, which a little research would easily en- 

 large, shows that, if there was a current in the Church antagonistic 

 to scientific investigations, there was also a current that sympathized 

 with it and impelled it onward. 



Thus have science and religion given to each other assistance 

 which more than balances, it seems to me, whatever hinderances they 

 have put in each other's way. This assistance, to be sure, has been 

 imperfect, lias been more or less unconscious, and sometimes, perhaps, 

 in despite of what has been intended. In the present controversy, as 

 to the proper relations between science and religion, does not this 

 page of history give useful instruction ? Not to render them oppo- 

 nents, or maintain conflict between them by raking over the ashes of 

 controversy; not to patch up a temporary truce by schemes for 

 dividing the field of knowledge between them, but to continue and 

 perfect between them this alliance of the past, making it henceforth 

 a conscious, entire, and welcomed cooperation is not this the duty 

 of the present and the future ? Since neither science nor religion 

 can claim an exclusive sovereignty over the field of knowledge; since 

 that domain cannot well be partitioned off between them, the true 

 way is to unite them in a perpetual alliance. Take the testimony of 

 both religion and science. Presume that there is a certain proportion 

 of truth in what each has to offer. Weigh in the scales of reason 

 what each presents. Accept that which is most solid, from which- 

 ever side it comes ; or if neither, which is likely, presents the whole 

 and real fact, employ the parallax of the two to give the actual posi- 

 tion and full form of the two. 



Each should seek from the other correction of its errors and fill- 

 ing out of its imperfections. Religion ought to obtain, from wider 

 knowledge, greater purity and enlargement. She ought to learn 

 from physical discovery the importance of going at once to facts and 



