i8 AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE 



into the expression of religion. Pointing to the tool marks, 

 Mr. Drummond shows that our model of the temple was not 

 made without hands. 



"The antagonism between religion and science" is an 

 absurd expression which was used most frequently after the 

 publication of the "Origin of Species." Religious men of 

 the last generation believed every statement in the Bible to 

 be a statement of fact. Science proved that the earth did 

 not come into existence in the stages described in the first 

 book of Genesis ; that the various species of animals and 

 plants were not separate creations, that every- organ in man's 

 body shows that it has been adapted by a process of evolu- 

 tion from an organ of the body of an animal belonging to 

 the " brute creation." Men who clung to the literal interpre- 

 tation of the Bible as essential to the Christian faith fought 

 against the truths of science. They preferred to disbelieve 

 the conclusions to which their judgment came on the 

 evidence of their senses. But science had no quarrel 

 with religion. It was the false in religion quarrelling with 

 the true. 



The religious man may be a man of science or he may be 

 unlearned and out of the way. If he is ignorant he sees no 

 reason for not accepting scripture allegories as records 

 of facts ; the picture is to him a glimpse into real life. A 

 learned man, on the other hand, recognizes the pigments 

 with which the picture is painted, and can trace the process 

 by which the colours have been added to the canvas 

 throughout successive ages. Yet the subject of the picture, 

 the religious idea which it shadows forth, is far more to him 

 than it is to the ignorant man, who gives to the details of 

 outline and colouring a naturalistic interpretation. 



It is with great reluctance that we have touched upon this 

 subject, yet it has occupied so large a place in the thought 

 of the last forty years that it cannot be passed over in a 

 general survey of the history of science. Well-meaning 

 but inept attempts at "reconciliation" have increased the 



