THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 561 



years for the searchers of God's truth, as revealed in Nature such 

 men as Buffon, Linnaeus, Whitehurst, and Daubenton to push their 

 works under these mighty fabrics of error, and, by statements which 

 could not be resisted, to explode them. 



Strange as it may at first seem, the war on geology was waged 

 more fiercely in Protestant countries than in Catholic; and, of all 

 countries, England furnished the most bitter opponents to geology 

 at first, and the most active negotiators in patching up a truce on a 

 basis of sham science afterward.* 



You have noted already that there are, generally, two sorts of at- 

 tack on a new science. First, there is the attack by pitting against 

 science some great doctrine in theology. You saw this in astronomy, 

 when Bellarmin and others insisted that the doctrine of the earth re- 

 volving about the sun is contrary to the doctrine of the incarnation. 

 So now, against geology, it was urged that the scientific doctrine that 

 the fossils represented animals which died before Adam, was contrary 

 to the doctrine of Adam's fall and that " death entered the world by 

 sin." ^ 



Then there is the attack by literal interpretation of texts, which 

 serves a better purpose generally in rousing prejudices. 



It is difficult to realize it now, but within the memory of many of 

 us the battle was raging most fiercely in England, and both these 

 kinds of artillery were in full play and filling the civilized world with 

 their roar. 



About thirty years ago the Rev. J. Mellor Brown, the Rev. Henry 

 Cole, and others, were hurling at all geologists alike, and especially 

 at such Christian divines as Dr. Buckland, and Dean Conybeare, and 

 Pye Smith, and such religious scholars as Prof. Sedgwick, the epithets 

 of " infidel," " impugner of the sacred record," and " assailant of the 

 volume of God." 



Their favorite weapon was the charge that these men were " at- 

 tacking the truth of God," forgetting that they were simply opposing 

 the mistaken interpretations of Messrs. Brown, Cole, and others like 

 them, inadequately informed. 



They declared geology " not a subject of lawful inquiry," de- 

 nouncing it as " a dark art," as " dangerous and disreputable," as '* a 

 forbidden province," as " infernal artillery," and as " an awful evasion 

 of the testimony of revelation." "^ 



This attempt to scare men from the science having failed, various 

 other means were taken. To say nothing about England, it is humili- 

 ating to human natui*e to remember the annoyances, and even trials, 

 to which the pettiest and narrowest of men subjected such Christian 



* For a philosophical statement of reasons why the struggle was more bitter, and the 

 attempt at deceptive compromises more absurd in England than elsewhere, see Maury, 

 " L'Ancienne Academic des Sciences," second edition, p. 152. 



^ See Pye Smith, D. D., "Geology and Scripture," pp. 156, 157, 168, 169. 

 VOL. VIII. 36 



