Dec. 12, 1884.] 



♦ KNO\A^LEDGE ♦ 



475 



lMIMpRPED-£XACTIJDl^CRffl|D: 



LONDON: FRIDAY, DEC. 12, 1884. 



Contents op No. 163. 



?16B 



Science and Theology. Bj B. A. 



Proctor 475 



Pleasant Hours with the Micro- 

 scope. (lUiis.) By U. J. Slack . 170 



Our Two Brains. JJy Kichard A. 

 Proctor 477 



The Workshop at Home. (IHus.) 

 ByaWorking Man 479 



Other Worlds than Ours. (Illui:.) 

 By M. de Fontenelle. With Notes 

 by E. A. Proctor 480 



Rambles with a Hammer, illluii.) 

 By W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S.. 482 



First Star Lessons. With Map. By 

 H. A. Proctor 484 



FAGB 



Photocraphie Recreation, (Illua.) 



ByW.Slingo 485 



Chapters on Modem Domestic Eco- 

 nomy. VI 487 



Reviews 488 



Rowland Hill Benevolent Fund 48!) 



Miscellanea 481) 



Correspondence : A Stranpe Form 

 of Afterglow — Economy — Duo- 

 decimal Notation — The Sentient 

 Eve the only Colour - box — No 



Jfatter, &c 4;)0 



Oar Inventors' Column 492 



Our Whist Column 493 



Our Chess Column 494 



SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 

 By Richard A. Proctor. 



WHILE thoroughly recognising the liberal and kindly- 

 spirit in which Dr. Healy (letter 1488, p. 372) 

 deals with the relations between science and theology, 

 I cannot but demur to the manner in which he compares 

 the two. He sets on the one hand the study of Science 

 and on the other the study of Theology, as if these were 

 different departments of research. Men of science, according 

 to his view, may become well acquainted with matters 

 belonging to their own department, but are ill-fitted to 

 express opinions on matters relating to theology ; and vice 

 versd. 



Are men rendered more fit to understand religious rela- 

 tions by giving much time to theological study ? The 

 answer to this question will depend on what we understand 

 by theology. Dr. Healy seems to understand by it " our 

 old beliefs and hopes." He appears to identify "revealed 

 religion" -with "theology." But, if he is right in this, 

 he surely is wrong in reganling theology as a department 

 of research ; for not only in Christian teaching, but in 

 every form of religion claiming to be revealed, it has con- 

 stantly been held that to the unlearned, nay to those 

 who are as babes and sucklings, the truth has been 

 revealed which the wise and learned have been unable 

 to receive, or by study to understand. Those to 

 whom was entrusted religious teaching in old times 

 were for the most part not men who had given much 

 time, many of them had not given any time at all, to 

 theological study. If but a single one were so selected 

 of old. Dr. Healy's objection to men of science "who 

 seek to become his religious teachers " falls to the ground. 

 If a man who had been all his life a fisherman could 

 be worthily selected to become a fisher of men, I can 

 see no reason why a man who has given a large part of his 

 time to chemical investigations (let us say) might not be a 

 most potent or even a divinely-ordained teacher of religious 

 doctrines. I do not know that any man of science has ever 

 claimed to become a religious teacher, as Dr. Healy 

 appears to imply. I know of no man of science who has 



ever asked the theologian or any man " to give up his 

 beliefs or hopes." But if any had done so, no one 

 would have a better & j'i'iori right to object to a man 

 of science who should speak about religious matters, than 

 the Scribes and Pharisees of old had to object against 

 Andrew and Peter, that "though quite ready to admit" 

 these twain as excellent fishermen, " they strongly objected 

 to them as religious teachers." There is nothing in the 

 study of God's universe, any more than there is in net- 

 making with Peter or tent-making with Paul, to render a 

 man objectionable as a religious teacher. It might be 

 urged with at least equal force that tlieolotjicnl training was 

 unsuitable for a religious teacher, seeing that not one of the 

 founders of widespread religions has ever selected a theo- 

 logian for apostolic work. Paul may be mentioned as an 

 exception. Yet, though he lived according to the straightest 

 sect a Pharisee, and though he had (or it was at least ob- 

 jected to him that he had) "much learning," and has given 

 theologians much to think about, there is nothing to show 

 that, according to the modern acceptance of the term, he 

 was a theologian. 



It may perhaps be urged that in our time the teacher of 

 religion imiH be a theologian. I know not what would 

 have been said on this point by the apostles of the early 

 Christian Church. But those who know anything of the 

 system of education and training adopted for religious 

 teachers and theologians in the principal Christian churches 

 of our time, can hardly find that there is much in the 

 system to justify Dr. Healy's tone. I myself passed through 

 all the theological examinations at the University which 

 are required from men who are to become clergymen, except 

 that one which is notoriously the easiest of them all, besides 

 receiving a preliminary training at King's College (the chief 

 Church-of-England College in London) which put me at the 

 " head of my year '" in Divinity. Yet, so far as religious 

 teaching is concerned, I can see nothing in anything I 

 then learned that even approaches in its influence the effect 

 of those studies that bring before the mind the infinite vast- 

 ness of God's domain, its eternal duration, and the perfec- 

 tion of the laws which prevail throughout its whole extent 

 alike in Space and Time. What is really held by many 

 theologians to be anti- theological in science, is in reality 

 that which makes the teachings of science most solemn and 

 impressive : Science teaches that God's domain is not a 

 little circle of the earth's surface arched over by a star- 

 spangled dome which is the floor of heaven, and hiding 

 beneath it the sulphurous caverns of Hades, as appearances 

 once taught men to imagine, but infinite space strewn with 

 infinite multitudes of suns and sun-systems ; Science has 

 read from the earth (God's work, and therefore His word, 

 if we can but read it aright), that for millions, nay for tens 

 and hundreds of millions of years in the past, the laws of 

 that domain, as now revealed to u.s, have been maintained 

 — so perfect are they — without occasion for change or inter- 

 ference ; and science has learned to look as far forwards as 

 backwards. Science, in fine, presents the Universe of 

 God as aptly symbolising what we have been taught to 

 consider the attributes of God Himself. It is this that 

 so many theologians regard as anti-theological, because 

 narrow theologies have pictured God after their own image, 

 with which these infinite grandeurs are not consistent. 



I am quite aware, however, that Dr. Healy himself dis- 

 claims any such feeling. He accepts the teachings of 

 science, but appears to imagine that science wishes to 

 emphasize the discrepancies which he finds between these 

 doctrines and his religious beliefs. I do not know oit any 

 man of science, or real student of science, who has done 

 more in this direction than simply to defend his scientific 

 teachings where impugned because of such imagined die- 



