CHAPTER XI 



SCIENCE AND RELIGION KANT, LAMBERT, 

 LAPLACE, SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL 



HUTTON had advanced the study of geology by 

 concentrating attention on the observable phenomena 

 of the earth's crust, and turning away from specula- 

 tions about the origin of the world and the relation 

 of this sphere to other units of the cosmos. In the 

 same century, however, other scientists and phi- 

 losophers were attracted by these very problems 

 which seemed not to promise immediate or demon- 

 strative solution, and through their studies they ar- 

 rived at conclusions which profoundly affected the 

 science, the ethics, and the religion of the civilized 

 world. 



Whether religion be defined as a complex feeling 

 of elation and humility a sacred fear akin to 

 the aesthetic sense of the sublime; or, as an intel- 

 lectual recognition of some high powers which gov- 

 ern us below of some author of all things, of some 

 force social or cosmic which tends to righteousness ; 

 or, as the outcrop of the moral life touched with 

 light and radiant with enthusiasm ; or, as partaking 

 of the nature of all these : it cannot be denied that 

 the eighteenth century contributed to its clarifica- 

 tion and formulation, especially through the efforts 

 of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724- 

 1804). Yet it is not difficult to show that the 

 philosophy of Kant and of those associated with 



