702 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



common allegiance. All that we 

 can require of any man is that he 

 should honestly present any facts 

 with which he may be called upon 

 to deal, and that he should not re 

 fuse a candid examination to any 

 relevant evidence in matters that lie 

 within the scope of his inquiries. 

 It is no part of the business of sci- 

 ence or of any one speaking in the 

 name of science to say how a given 

 individual shall assess the evidence 

 on a given question. There is such 

 a thing at times as force majeure in 

 intellectual as well as in political or 

 military matters ; and where this 

 manifestly exists for one who works 

 strenuously for science in his own 

 field, others who do not feel the 

 stress may properly refrain from dis- 

 respectful comments. We hold that 

 the message of science comes home 

 to every man in some measure or 

 other, bidding him to work for the 

 truth, to rid his mind of delusion, of 

 partiality, of prejudice, of distorting 

 self interest. Some respond to the 

 appeal more perfectly than others; 

 but it would not he safe to say that, 

 where the most complete tabula 

 rasa has been produced, there the 

 greatest amount of scientific energy 

 will be disengaged. 



Holding these views, we are pre- 

 pared to allow the fullest freedom to 

 every one to reconcile in any way he 

 pleases his religious convictions with 

 his scientific views. How the recon- 

 ciliation is effected is not our con- 

 cern ; it is the concern of each indi- 

 vidual that it shall be an honest one. 

 It is his concern and it is his respon- 

 sibility ; why should a stranger med- 

 dle therewith ? The message of re- 

 ligion, reduced to its simplest terms, 

 is identical with the message of sci- 

 ence: "Be true ! " and the man who 

 consciously fails of intellectual sin- 

 cerity will not feel much happier on 

 the religious than on the purely in- 

 tellectual side. It is high time that 



Ephraim ceased to envy Judah, and 

 Judah to vex Ephraim. There is 

 ample work in the world both for 

 science and for religion. It is for 

 science to establish order among as- 

 certained phenomena and to deduce 

 from them the laws, or some of the 

 laws, which govern the succession of 

 events and prescribe the conditions 

 of human life. It is for religion to 

 uphold the sanctity of the moral law, 

 to which science might be tempted 

 not to assign any special pre-emi- 

 nence, and to keep open an outlook 

 into the origin and essential nature 

 of things, and into those as yet unre- 

 alized possibilities of existence which 

 science, full fed upon certainties, 

 might be disposed to ignore. Sci- 

 ence and religion may each watch 

 over the other with advantage, see- 

 ing that each has a besetting sin 

 science a tendency to a hard intellec- 

 tual pride, and religion a tendency to 

 superstition and general indifference 

 to external evidence. If each would 

 recognize its own weakness and ac- 

 cept in good part the services of the 

 other, the result would be a higher 

 type of moral and intellectual life 

 than has hitherto prevailed. 



Science, it must, however, be un- 

 derstood, is unyielding in its demand 

 that the adhesion of the mind to any 

 opinion or conclusion shall be gov- 

 erned by evidence and not deter- 

 mined by mere views of expediency 

 or convenience. There is therefore 

 a somewhat unscientific tone in the 

 remarks of our professor when he 

 says: " We will continue to believe 

 that in our creation we received from 

 God a moral nature and an immortal 

 spirit ; that we have somehow be- 

 come demoralized, and that the taint 

 of our degeneracy is hereditary." It 

 is not scientific to say " We will con- 

 tinue to believe " anything ; if we will 

 to believe, we turn our back on evi- 

 dence, or at least are prepared to do 

 so. And if it is not scientific to say 



