7CO 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It is a pleasure to find evidences 

 of this in contemporary happenings. 

 Some weeks ago a meeting was called 

 in the town of Leeds, in England, to 

 consider the question of raising sub- 

 scriptions in aid of the Huxley Me- 

 morial Fund. Among those present 

 was the Bishop of Eipon, Dr. Boyd 

 Carpenter, who spoke strongly in 

 support of the object of the meeting. 

 He did not profess to share all Hux- 

 ley's opinions ; but that did not 

 seem to him any reason why he 

 should not bear testimony to the 

 nobility of Huxley's life and the 

 value of his services in the cause of 

 science and of popular enlighten- 

 ment. He recognized in Huxley a 

 great man — "great by virtue of his 

 devotion to science, great hy virtue of 

 that wide appreciativeness he brought 

 to bear upon it, and great in the 

 power of expounding it to others." 

 He acknowledged that there were 

 those — though, as he said, a dimin- 

 ishing number— who were disposed 

 to " look askance at the progress of 

 science." Their feeling was that sci- 

 ence threatened to take away their 

 faith — a faith that was bound up 

 with their dearest hopes ; but men 

 were now " beginning to understand 

 that it can not be in the nature of 

 things that facts and trixths will con- 

 tradict those things that are nearest 

 and dearest and most essential to 

 their happiness." Tliis perception, 

 this conviction, the bishop holds to 

 be faith in its highest form. " Be- 

 cause we are men," he says, " we 

 claim it to be our privilege and our 

 responsibility to follow truth wher- 

 ever it leads us. It is not our duty 

 to encourage a timidity which, if it 

 were encouraged, could only lead to 

 a fatal obscurantism. The progress 

 of knowledg-e can only deepen and 

 intensify our attachment to the things 

 which are true, and the things which 

 are true can not be out of hai'mouy 

 with the things aiound us." 



These are brave and noble words, 

 but the bishop was determined to 

 be yet more precise, so that no one 

 could misunderstand his meaning. 

 He therefore continued : " Eeligious 

 truth, in one sense, must always wait 

 on scientific truth ; and religious 

 truth must often change its form at 

 the bidding and on the information 

 given it by scientific truth. I am 

 not aware that in the history of sci- 

 entific progress religion has ever lost ; 

 the precious jewels have always been 

 restored to her in richer and nobler 

 settings. Because I believe that the 

 advancement of knowledge must be 

 for the benefit of mankind, and could 

 not in the long i"un be hostile to any 

 of the things most precious to us, I 

 stand here to-day to do honor to one 

 who labored in the cause of the ad- 

 vancement of knowledge, and did so 

 much to make it the heritage of all 

 people." 



Finally, this representative prel- 

 ate bore testimony to Huxley's 

 " truthfulness of character," for 

 which he said he had " the prof ouud- 

 est admiration." As to Huxley's an- 

 tagonism to Christianity, he said it 

 was far more called out by the " un- 

 fortunate attitude of some who made 

 themselves champions of Christian- 

 ity, than by anything in the es- 

 sential natui'e of the Christian reli- 

 gion." Huxley was not' a man who 

 would have wished to deprive any 

 one of convictions that were a source 

 to him of moral strength and com- 

 fort. 



So far the Bishop of Ripon ; and 

 if a hishop can say these things, what 

 is there to hinder that perfect rec- 

 onciliation of science and religion 

 which will give to both the best con- 

 ditions for development ? The fault 

 to-day — so far as fault there is — is not 

 wholly on the religious side. On 

 that side we see the timidity which 

 the bishop deprecates, and for him- 

 self repudiates; but on the other side 



