IN MODERN SCIENCE. 



n 



of the scientific knowledge of nature on Ag- 

 nosticism. 



One fruitful cause of difficulty in the rela- 

 tions of science and religion is to be found in 

 the narrowness and incapacity of well-meaning 

 Christians who unnecessarily bring the doc- 

 trines of natural and revealed religion into 

 conflict, by misunderstanding the one or the 

 other, or by attaching obsolete scientific ideas 

 to Holy Scripture, and identifying them with 

 it in points where it is quite non-committal. 

 Much mischief is also done by a prevalent habit 

 of speaking of all, or nearly all, the votaries 

 of science as if they were irreligious. 



A second cause is to be found in the extrav- 

 agant speculations indulged in by the adherents 

 of certain philosophical systems. Such specu- 

 lations often far overpass the limits of actual 

 scientific knowledge, and are yet paraded be- 

 fore the ignorant as if they were legitimate re- 

 sults of science, and so become irretrievably 

 confounded with it in the popular mind. 



A third influence, more closely connected 

 with science itself, arises from the rapidity of 

 the progress of discovery and of the practical 

 applications of scientific facts and principles. 

 This has unsettled the minds of men, and has 



