

SURVIVAL OF HOSTILITY TO SCIENCE 



afraid of inquiry, never afraid to abandon or to modify 

 his previous opinions if his reason was convinced ; and he 

 always kept his reason open to conviction, especially in 

 the domains to which his studies were directed. All this 

 makes him an interesting study in religious psychology. 

 Here is a " survival " of the hostility toward science, 

 fortunately so rare in these days that it may be pre- 

 served as a curiosity. It is taken from a religious weekly 

 of long-continued authority and orthodoxy, published in 

 New York, July, 1897. 



" Speaking at C the other day on the ' Limitations 



of Science/ Dr. declared: ' Science is the slave of 



the lamp to the Aladdin of materialism. Whatever 

 science does,-it never touches the soul. We crave men- 

 tal hot rolls of morning papers and mixed drinks of flashy 

 news; but our diet is one that makes dreamers rather 

 than thinkers, dervishes and howling hoodlums rather 

 than serious doers of good deeds. Science puts deadly 

 instruments into our hands, but gives no impulse to our 

 hearts to use rightly, instead of abuse, the offered ad- 

 vantages.' Nothing on the philosophical side of mod- 

 ernism, we may add, is more necessary than a humbling 

 agnosticism as to science and a confident trustfulness as 

 to God in Christ. When men clearly perceive the limita- 

 tions of their false god science, they will be more apt to 

 look with appealing faith to the true God who made all 

 the materials of science and much more besides, and who 

 alone can save the soul while informing the mind." 



It is a curious fact that even now, at the end of the 

 nineteenth century, when a young man is proposed as a 

 candidate for a chair of biology or natural history, the 

 question often comes back, What are his views of the 

 " higher criticism " ? In some cases young men thor- 

 oughly qualified by their knowledge, exemplary in their 

 lives, and careful in their speech have been rejected be- 

 cause they were not ready with stereotyped answers when 

 questioned regarding the traditional interpretation of the 

 Mosaic cosmogony. 



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