212 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE vi 



Eawlinson trusted so implicitly in 1859, is 

 relegated by all serious critics to the domain of 

 fable. 



But if scientific method, operating in the re- 

 gion of history, of philology, of archaeology, in 

 the course of the last thirty or forty years, has 

 become thus formidable to the theological dog- 

 matist, what may not be said about scientific 

 method working in the province of physical 

 science ? For, if it be true that the Canonical 

 Scriptures have innumerable points of contact with 

 civil history, it is no less true that they have almost 

 as many with natural history ; and their accuracy 

 is put to the test as severely by the latter as by 

 the former. The origin of the present state of 

 the heavens and the earth is a problem which 

 lies strictly within the province of physical 

 science ; so is that of the origin of man among 

 living things ; so is that of the physical changes 

 which the earth has undergone since the origin of 

 man ; so is that of the origin of the various races 

 and nations of men, with all their varieties of 

 language and physical conformation. Whether 

 the earth moves round the sun or the contrary ; 

 whether the bodily and mental diseases of men 

 and animals are caused by evil spirits or not ; 

 whether there is such an agency as witchcraft or 

 not all these are purely scientific questions ; 

 and to all of them the Canonical Scriptures 

 profess to give true answers. And though 



