2 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 



its confines, but in a general way it seems to me to 

 bear a resemblance to the relations between re- 

 ligion and science. I speak of religion generally, 

 and specially of religion as typified by the Catholic 

 Church. And, though the period with which I 

 am concerned is the last hundred years, similar 

 cycles of events have taken place in the past ; can 

 we doubt that their like will take place in the 

 future ? 



Let us turn our attention to the Argument from 

 Design, commonly so-called. My intention is to 

 consider its position at the beginning of the last 

 century, and the effect upon it of the great con- 

 troversies of the middle of that century which men 

 think of as the Darwinian controversy. Finally, I 

 desire to consider how that argument stands to- 

 day, after the storm and fury of that controversy 

 has abated. 



It would be a very great error to suppose that 

 the pre-Darwinian era was one barren of scientific 

 discovery. Quite the contrary was the case. At 

 the opening of the last century, or during the last 

 few years of that which preceded it, the ancient 

 caloric theory of heat was upset by Rumford and 

 Davy, who showed that heat was a mode of motion 

 affecting the molecules of the heated substance. 

 The ancient corpuscular theory of light was also 

 upset by Young, who showed that light was due 

 to a wave motion in the ether, then first described 

 as a new medium. The same authority introduced 

 the concept of energy to the scientific world. 

 Dalton brought forward the atomic theory ; 

 Wollaston detected the dark lines in the solar 



