1GO GENESIS VERSUS NATURE rv 



has destroyed the value of these criticisms, I 

 have neither the wish nor the right to attempt 

 to disturb his faith. On the other hand, I may 

 be permitted to state my own conviction, that, 

 so far as natural science is involved, M. Reville's 

 observations retain the exact value they possessed 

 before Mr. Gladstone attacked them. 



Trusting that I have now said enough to secure 

 the author of a wise and moderate disquisition 

 upon a topic which seems fated to stir unwisdom 

 and fanaticism to their depths, a fuller measure 

 of justice than has hitherto been accorded to him, 

 I retire from my self-appointed championship, 

 with the hope that I shall not hereafter be called 

 upon by M. HeVille to apologise for damage done 

 to his strong case by imperfect or impulsive 

 advocacy. But, perhaps, I may be permitted to 

 add a word or two, on my own account, in 

 reference to the great question of the relations 

 between science arid religion ; since it is one 

 about which I have thought a good deal ever 

 since I have been able to think at all; and 

 about which I have ventured to express my 

 views publicly, more than once, in the course 

 of the last thirty years. 



The antagonist! between science and religion, 

 about which we hear so much, appears to me to 

 be purely factitious fabricated, on the one hand, 

 by short-sighted religious people who confound a 



