THE RECONCILIATION. 109 



imperfect separation of their spheres and functions. Reli- 

 gion has, from the first, struggled to unite more or less sci- 

 ence with its nescience; Science has, from the first, kept 

 hold of more or less nescience as though it were a part of 

 science. Each has been obliged gradually to relinquish 

 that territory which it wrongly claimed, while it has gained 

 from the other that to which it had a right ; and the antago- 

 nism between them has been an inevitable accompaniment 

 of this process. A more specific statement will make this 

 clear. Religion, though at the outset it asserted a 



mystery, also made numerous definite assertions respecting 

 this mystery — professed to know its nature in the minutest 

 detail, and in so far as it claimed positive knowledge, it tres- 

 passed upon the province of Science. From the times of 

 early mythologies, when such intimate acquaintance with 

 the mystery was alleged, down to our own days, when but a 

 few abstract and vague propositions are maintained, Re- 

 ligion has been compelled by Science to give up one after 

 another of its dogmas — of those assumed cognitions which 

 it could not substantiate. In the mean time, Science substi- 

 tuted for the personalities to which Religion ascribed phe- 

 nomena, certain metaphysical entities; and in doing this 

 it trespassed on the province of Religion; since it classed 

 among the things which it comprehended, certain forms of 

 the incomprehensible. Partly by the criticisms of Re- 

 ligion, which has occasionally called in question its assump- 

 tions, and partly as a consequence of spontaneous growth, 

 Science has been obliged to abandon these attempts to in- 

 clude within the boundaries of knowledge that which cannot 

 be known; and has so yielded up to Religion that which of 

 right belonged to it. So long as this process of dif- 



ferentiation is incomplete, more or less of antagonism must 

 continue. Gradually as the limits of possible cognition are 

 established, the causes of conflict will diminish. And a per- 

 manent peace will be reached when Science becomes fully 

 convinced that its explanations are proximate and relative; 



