42 



as a friendly territory, — a province of God^s universe where 

 His footprints can be traced, and where His wisdom can be 

 discerned. But then, on the other hand, is it not clear that 

 scientific men are at this moment committing the very error 

 with which they are charging theologians ? They are attempting 

 to iiivade the province of Revelation, and to sweep away its 

 most sublime doctrines by theories and speculations. As a 

 theologian I have no wish to fetter true Science. I accord to 

 it the utmost liberty. In its own field it does noble service to 

 my cause, enabling me to reason with logical precision, from 

 clear manifestations of design in every department of nature, to 

 the existence of an Omnipotent Designer. But when Science 

 leaves its legitimate field to assail revealed truth — when the 

 scientist, having reached the limit of experimental evidence, 

 refuses to stop, and attempts to prolong the vision into the 

 unknown, so as to discern in matter the promise and potency 

 of all terrestrial life ;* then, as a theologian, and in the name 

 of Science itself, I place an arrest upon him, as he would do 

 upon me; and if he will not desist, I shall consider it my duty to 

 warn the public that his so-called conclusions, however skilfully 

 framed and eloquently expressed, are no more worthy of belief 

 than the splendid creations of a poet^s fancy. And in adopting 

 such a course I have the high authority of Tyndall himself, 

 who says : — " The prof oundest minds know that nature's ways 

 are not at all times their ways, and that the brightest flashes 

 in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been 

 proved to have their counterparts in the world of fact.^'f 



Still another point I feel bound to notice. Scientists com- 

 plain that their conclusions are criticised and called in question 

 by many who acknowledge that they have never conducted a 

 single investigation, physiological, chemical, or anatomical; 

 and they denounce in no measured terms such presumptuous 

 criticisms. The complaint is plausible, but not very logical. 

 I shall show this in a sentence or two. The scientist by his 

 researches establishes certain facts. He explains those facts 

 in intelligible language. Then he proceeds to deduce from 

 them inferences with regard, say, to the origin of life, to the 

 origin of species, or to the origin of mind. Now, I take his 

 facts as established and explained by himself; and I maintain 

 that I am as competent to test the accuracy of the conclusions 

 he professes to deduce from them as he is. It is not practical 

 science that is here required, it is logic, and scientists will not 

 surely lay claim to a monopoly of this faculty. So then, in 

 prosecuting my critical examination, I shall not attempt to 



Tyiulall, -'hWiYss. t Fraytnenfs of Science, i:>. 111. 



