SCIENCE AND THE BOOK 2/9 



so largely affects all present knowledge, and he must 

 wrestle with the theory until it no longer hinders the 

 hold of religion upon his life. He may be perfectly 

 sure that he does not clearly understand both, but 

 he must get them into reasonable concordance before 

 he can be quite at peace. 



Truth is true no matter how it is acquired. There 

 can be no doubt as to the essential truth of religion: 

 its fruits proclaim its worth. There can be no doubt 

 as to the essential truth of evolution; the clarity it 

 has brought into the sciences is the evidence of the 

 value of the conception. That it will persist in its 

 present form, that it will be unchanged by later ad- 

 ditions to our knowledge is of course unthinkable. It 

 may be incomplete, it may be undeveloped, but so far 

 as it goes it contains the truth. Under these condi- 

 tions, how can we bring peace into our own mind? 

 These two important provinces seem so often to be 

 at variance. The difficulty may lie in one of two 

 places. In the first place, each truth may be stated 

 in terms so peculiar to its own subject as to convey 

 no meaning to the student of the other branch. There 

 is a second, and more harassing possibility. The 

 same words may be used by students in each branch 

 but each side may put a different significance into the 

 terms. Then each believes he understands the other, 

 when he really does not. 



