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OF 



Of CANAOa 



Vol. IX.] 



NOVEMBER 1, 188.5. 



[No. 1. — New Series. 



THE UNKNOWABLE; 



(lU, 



THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. 

 By Richard A. Proctor. 



And still the skies are opened as of old 



To the entranced gaze, ay, nearer far 



And brighter than of yore ; and might is tliere. 



And Infinite Purity is there, and high 



Eternal Wisdom, and the calm clear face 



Of Duty, and a higher, stronger Love 



And light in one, and a new, reverend Name, 



Greater than any and combining all ; 



And over all, veiled with a veil of cloud, 



God set far off, too bright for mortal eyes. — MOREIS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



HE belief prevails that men of science, and 

 those who accept the teachings of science, 

 do not view religion from the same 

 direction .is those did who in old times 

 were ignorant of the greater part of what 

 is now known. It is supposed, further, 

 that the religion of the world, or at least 

 of the civilised world, is threatened, through the pro- 

 gress of science, with a change which would mean 

 something like destfuction. 



In reality the human race has regarded religion always, 

 so far back as the evidence shows, from the same direc- 

 tion, though what they have seen has altered in aspect as 

 their range of view has increased. 



To speak of a conflict between religion and science, is 

 much as though one .should speak of a conflict between 

 our view of the universe we have surveyed and our ideas 

 respecting the infinities of space which remain unsur- 

 veyed — including those which are unsurveyable through 

 distance. Science means the knowledge which we have, 

 the study of science is the search after stich know- 

 ledge as we may have. Religion on the other hand 

 depends in the main on the impression produced by 

 what is not known, including always the knowable, but 

 presenting itself more and more clearly to us as in 

 infinitely larger degree unknowable. How can we look at 

 the unknown save from the region of the known ? And 



how can there possibly arise a contest between zeal for 

 knowledge and awe in presence of the unknown ? 



If science in its steady progress promised or threatened 

 — which should we rather say ? — to interpret all thitigs ; 

 if the domain of the unknown were ever o-rowino" less 

 and less as the domain of the knovfn grows larger and 

 larger, then perhaps men might recognise -not indeed a 

 conflict between religion and science, but — r, possibility 

 that such a conflict might arise. The case, however, is 

 not only otherwise, it is the very reverse of this. The 

 domain of the known is, indeed, growing wider and 

 wider, as was foreseen in old times by him who wrote 

 that "Men shoald run to and fro, and Knowledge be 

 increpjSed" : but with the growth of knowledge has come 

 ever clearer and clearer recognition of the truth that the 

 known, let it grow as it may, must always be as nothing 

 compared with the unknown. In old times men thought 

 they knew much ; Newton and Laplace said the known 

 is little ; the man of science of to-day says the known is 

 nothing. In old times men thought the unknown little ; 

 Newton and Laplace said the imknown is immense ; to- 

 day science says the unknown is infinite. 



In no sense do we stand, now, in any different position 

 towards religion than was occupied by men a century 

 ago, or a thousand years ago, or when as yet the child- 

 man had but begun to look from what he knew towards 

 the my.sterious unknown, from his little spot of surveyed 

 ground to the distant hills as yet unexplored, to the 

 mountains beyond them, to the expanse of ocean seen 

 between the mountain slopes, to the ocean horizon, to the 

 cloud-laden air, and between the clouds to the infinite 

 depths of star-strewn space. We have surveyed a wider 

 region than men of old times. What seemed iu past ages 

 unknowable we understand and know. Phenomena that 

 once men explained as stipernatural we have learned to 

 interpret as due to natural agencies. What men recog- 

 nised as due to the direct intervention of deity we see to 

 follow from the operation of law. Where msn in old 

 times bared their feet, as judging that they stood on holy 

 ground, we have boldly advanced, as if hoping to ap- 

 proach " the Throne itself where Wisdom reigns sujareme." 

 But we have not approached that Throne ; for its 

 distance is infinite. We have not entered on holier 

 ground ; the ground on which we stood was already holy. 

 We have not interpreted the laws that we have re- 

 cognised ; or only to recognise higher laws beyond our 



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