286 HISTORY OF FORMAL ASTRONOMY. 



include all cases in which the same dilemma may again come into play, 

 is it easy to lay down an adequate canon for the purpose. For we can 

 hardly foresee, beforehand, what part of the past history of the universe 

 may eventually be found to come within the domain of science ; or 

 what bearing the tenets, which science establishes, may have upon our 

 view of the providential and revealed government of the world. But 

 without attempting here to generalize on this subject, there are two 

 reflections which may be worth our notice : they are supported by 

 what took place in reference to Astronomy on the occasion of which 

 wc are speaking ; and may, at other periods, be applicable to other 

 sciences. 



In the first place, the meaning which any generation puts upon the 

 phrases of Scripture, depends, more than is at first sight supposed, 

 upon the received philosophy of the time. Hence, while men imagine 

 that they are contending for Revelation, they are, in fact, contending 

 for their own interpretation of Revelation, unconsciously adapted to 

 what they believe to be rationally probable. And the new interpre- 

 tation, which the new philosophy requires, and which appears to the 

 older school to be a fatal violence done to the authority of religion, 

 is accepted by their successors without the dangerous results which 

 were apprehended. When the language of Scripture, invested with its 

 new meaning, has become familiar to men, it is found that the ideas 

 which it calls up, are quite as reconcilable as the former ones were, 

 with the soundest religious views. And the world then looks back 

 with surprise at the error of those who thought that the essence of 

 Revelation was involved in their own arbitrary version of some collat- 

 eral circumstance. At the present day we can hardly conceive how 

 reasonable men should have imagined that religious reflections on the 

 stability of the earth, and the beauty and use of the luminaries which 

 revolve round it, would be interfered with by its being acknowledged 

 that this rest and motion are apparent only. 



In the next place, we may observe that those who thus adhere tena- 

 ciously to the traditionary or arbitrary mode of understanding Scrip- 

 tural expressions of physical events, are always strongly condemned 

 by succeeding generations. They are looked upon with contempt by 

 the world at large, who cannot enter into the obsolete difficulties with 

 which they encumbered themselves ; and with pity by the more con- 

 siderate and serious, who know how much sagacity and rightminded- 

 ness are requisite for the conduct of philosophers and religious men on 

 such occasions ; but who know also how weak and vain is the attempt 



