SCIENTIFIC FAITH 



vation of our aspirations? Has not science also en 

 larged the sphere of our love, and given us new 

 grounds for wonder and admiration? It certainly 

 has, but it as certainly has put a damper upon our 

 awe, our reverence, our veneration. However val 

 uable these emotions are, and whatever part they 

 may have played in the development of character 

 in the past, they seem doomed to play less and 

 less part in the future. Poetry and religion, so 

 called, seem doomed to play less and less part in the 

 life of the race in the future. We shall still dream 

 and aspire, but we shall not tremble and worship 

 as in the past. 



We see about us daily transformations as stu 

 pendous as that of the evolution of man from the 

 lower animals, and we marvel not. We see the inor 

 ganic pass into the organic, we see iron and lime and 

 potash and silex blush in the flowers, sweeten in the 

 fruit, ripen in the grain, crimson in the blood, and 

 we marvel not. We see the spotless pond-lily rising 

 and unfolding its snowy petals, and its trembling 

 heart of gold, from the black slime of the pond. We 

 contemplate our own life-history as shown in our 

 pre-natal life, and we are not disturbed. But when 

 we stretch this process out through the geologic ages 

 and try to see ourselves a germ, a fish, a reptile, in 

 the womb of time, we are balked. We do not see the 

 great mother, or the great father, or feel the lift of the 

 great biologic laws. We are beyond our depth. It 

 181 



