IV GENESIS VERSUS NATURE 1G1 



certain branch of science, theology, with religion ; 

 and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scien- 

 tific people who forget that science takes for its 

 province only that which is susceptible of clear 

 intellectual comprehension ; and that, outside the 

 boundaries of that province, they must be con- 

 tent with imagination, with hope, and with 

 ignorance. 



It seems to me that the moral and intellectual 

 life of the civilised nations of Europe is the 

 product of that interaction, sometimes in the way 

 of antagonism, sometimes in that of profitable 

 interchange, of the Semitic and the Aryan races* 

 which commenced with the dawn of history, when 

 Greek and Phoenician came in contact, and has 

 been continued by Carthaginian and Roman, by 

 Jew and Gentile, down to the present day. Our 

 art (except, perhaps, music) and our science are 

 the contributions of the Aryan ; but the essence 

 of our religion is derived from the Semite. In 

 the eighth century B.C., in the heart of a world 

 of idolatrous polytheists, the Hebrew prophets 

 put forth a conception of religion which appears 

 to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius 

 as the art of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. 



"And what doth the Lord require of thee, but 

 to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 

 humbly with thy God ? " 



If any so-called religion takes away from this 

 great saying of Mi call, I think it wantonly muti- 

 100 



