352 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SCIENCE AND THE BISHOPS. 



By Pkofessor T. U. HCXLEY, F. E. S. 



IF there is any truth in the old adage that a burned child dreads the 

 fire, I ought to be very loath to touch a sermon while the memory 

 of what befell me on a recent occasion, possibly not yet forgotten by 

 the readers of this Review, is uneffaced. But I suppose that even the 

 distinguished censor of that unheard-of audacity to which not even 

 the newspaper report of a sermon is sacred, can hardly regard a man 

 of science as either indelicate or presumptuous, if he ventures to offer 

 some comments upon three discourses, specially addressed to the great 

 assemblage of men of science which recently gathered at Manchester, 

 by three bishops of the State Church. On my return to England not 

 long ago, I found a pamphlet, * containing a version, which I presume 

 to be authorized, of these sermons, among the huge mass of letters and 

 papers which had accumulated during two months' absence ; and I 

 have read them not only with attentive interest, but with a feeling of 

 satisfaction which is quite new to me as a result of hearing or reading 

 sermons. These excellent discourses, in fact, appear to me to signalize 

 a new departure in the course adopted by theology toward science, 

 and to indicate the possibility of bringing about an honorable modus 

 Vivendi between the two. How far the three bishops speak as accred- 

 ited representatives of the Church is a question to be considered bv- 

 and-by. Most assuredly, I am not authorized to represent any one but 

 myself. But I suppose that there must be a good many people in the 

 Church of the bishops' way of thinking ; and I have reason to believe 

 that in the ranks of science there are a good many persons who, more 

 or less, share my views. And it is to these sensible people on both 

 sides, as the bishops and I must needs think those who agree with us, 

 that my present observations are addressed. They Avill probably be 

 astonished to learn how insignificant, in principle, their differences are. 

 It is impossible to read the discourses of the three prelates without be- 

 ing impressed by the knowledge which they display, and by the spirit of 

 equity, I might say of generosity, toward science which pervades them. 

 There is no trace of that tacit or open assumption that the rejection of 

 theological dogmas, on scientific grounds, is due to moral perversity, 

 which is the ordinary note of ecclesiastical homilies on this subject, 

 and which makes them look so supremely silly to men whose lives have 

 been spent in wrestling with these questions. There is no attempt to 

 hide away real stumbling-blocks under rhetorical stucco ; no resort to 



* " The Advance of Science." Three sermons preached in Manchester Cathedral on Sun- 

 day, September 4, 1887, durinc; the mcetinpj of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, by the Bishop of Carlisle, the Bishop of Bedford, and the Bishop of 

 Mancbostcr. 



