SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 153 



of the science ; at another time they discover that the 

 science had all along been very clearly revealed in the 

 Bible under a disguise. It unfortunately escapes their 

 notice that by this means, while they are reverently 

 denouncing the science 4 in the interests of Christian 

 orthodoxy/ they are under a disguise denouncing the 

 Bible. 



' In my view,' says your correspondent above referred 

 to, ' the Mosaic writers were divinely taught, and knew 

 what they wrote about with a most perfect knowledge.' 

 In one sense, no doubt, they did know what they were 

 writing about they knew that it was religion, and, 

 therefore, they never pretended to ' enunciate ' science, 

 whether false or true ; but in any other sense to say that 

 they knew what they wrote about with a most perfect 

 knowledge, is to assert what is highly improbable, and 

 cannot be proved. Either it makes every writer a kind of 

 god, so far as the attribute of infallibility is concerned, 

 or it destroys all independence of testimony. To claim 

 for them a perfect knowledge of which they made no 

 use, except to mislead the world for thousands of years, 

 is surely to commit the capital offence of { inciting to 

 hatred and contempt' of their writings. How alien, 

 moreover, is it to the spirit of the writers themselves 

 men who are constantly confessing their own errors, 

 doubts, and perplexities ; men whose path in moral, let 

 alone intellectual excellence, was not always direct and 

 straightforward, and who knew and owned their infirmity 

 of nature. How contrary, too, to every analogy of life 

 is this notion of a Book, written in perfect language by 



