18 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 



ligions, though even none of them be actually true, are yet 

 all adumbrations of a truth. 



§ 5. As, to the religious, it will seem absurd to set forth 

 any justification for Religion; so, to the scientific, will it 

 seem absurd to defend Science. Yet to do the last is cer- 

 tainly as needful as to do the first. If there exists a class 

 who, in contempt of its follies and disgust at its corruptions, 

 have contracted towards Religion a repugnance which 

 makes them overlook the fundamental verity contained in 

 it; so, too, is there a class offended to such a degree by the de- 

 structive criticisms men of science make on the religious ten- 

 ets they regard as essential, that they have acquired a strong 

 prejudice against Science in general. They are not pre- 

 pared with any avowed reasons for their dislike. They 

 have simply a remembrance of the rude shakes which Sci- 

 ence has given to many of their cherished convictions, and 

 a suspicion that it may perhaps eventually uproot all they 

 regard as sacred; and hence it produces in them a certain 

 inarticulate dread. 



What is Science? To see the absurdity of the prejudice 

 against it, we need only remark that Science is simply a 

 higher development of common knowledge; and that if 

 Science is repudiated, all knowledge must be repudiated 

 along with it. The extremest bigot will not suspect any 

 harm in the observation that the sun rises earlier and sets 

 later in the summer than in the winter; but will rather 

 consider such an observation as a useful aid in fulfilling the 

 duties of life. Well, Astronomy is an organized body of 

 similar observations, made with greater nicety, extended to 

 a larger number of objects, and so analyzed as to disclose the 

 real arrangements of the heavens, and to dispel our false 

 conceptions of them. That iron will rust in water, that 

 wood will burn, that long kept viands become putrid, the 

 most timid sectarian will teach without alarm, as things use- 

 ful to be known. But these are chemical truths: Chemis- 



