DISCUSSION 113 



Copernicus ; it made an enormous breach in the rock 

 of the Church, for the authority of the Bible was 

 shaken for the first time. The new learning showed 

 that the Bible contained errors, and could not 

 therefore be the outcome of divine revelation. The 

 Reformation, the second wave, made another 

 breach, and now we have the doctrine of evolution, 

 and this wave has destroyed belief in miracles. 

 But does this imply the ruin of Christianity as a 

 whole ? No, only its purification or enlightenment ; 

 and I hope that science will lead to such an evolution 

 of both Protestantism and Catholicism, that they 

 will eventually unite and form one universal 

 church.' 



Professor Plate's whole wording here is 

 rhetorical rather than logical. He is mistaken 

 in thinking that a breach was made in the rock 

 of the Church by the Copernican system. 

 Copernicus did not prove the Bible to be wrong, 

 but only showed that certain passages hi it 

 had to be interpreted in a way differing from 

 the hitherto usually accepted manner. If this 

 were not the case, Professor Plate would be 

 wrong if, at the present day, he still speaks of 

 sunrise or sunset. The language of the Bible 

 is that of ordinary mortals. It is difficult to 

 see why Professor Plate attacks the Bible here, 

 when just before he remarked that he thought 

 it altogether wrong to attack the Bible in any 



