324 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



theless forms an important feature in the development of 



English thought, if not also of English science. It is 



27. the apologetic literature, those works which deal with 



Apologetic 



literature in what liave bccu termed the " Evidences." In the absence 



England. 



of any scientific theology based upon accurate historical 

 research and philosophical criticism, such as has existed 

 with many good and some evil results since the end of 

 the eighteenth century in Germany, the need was felt 

 for defending or interpreting those answers to the great 

 problems of Nature, Man, and Life, which seemed bound 

 up with the Christian belief, or suggested by the sacred 

 writings. The teaching of science had not become, as in 

 France, a purely secular occupation ; instruction was not 

 separated from education ; apologetics had not become 

 doubtful through the bad faith and duplicities of cynica 

 like Voltaire, nor ridiculous through the puerilities of 

 shallow writers such as Campe in Germany. Many 

 serious minds were occupied with the growing dis- 

 crepancies between scientific and popular religious teach- 

 ing, and believing they could discern the drift of the 

 former, they made various more or less successful 

 attempts to effect a reconciliation between the moving 

 and developing conceptions of scientific thought and the 

 fixed and unalterable ideals of religious belief. Such 

 attempts must be doomed to failure, or at best they 

 offer an individual solution, interesting only if it 

 happens to be the inspiration of a poet or if it repre- 

 sents the creed of one of the few great and soaring 

 intellects which appear once or twice in a century. 

 The conviction is gradually gaining ground that scientific 

 and religious thought emanate from two separate centres. 



