26 THE REV. CANON E. B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A., ON 



indicate certain desiderata wliicli must be supplied before 

 complete harmony is established. 



I take the word science in a large sense. I include all 

 investigations of the natural world, and I do not exclude 

 the phenomena of human nature, the higher as well as the 

 lower, the past as well as the present. 



1. The scientific man by no means ignores the Bible. He 

 recognises that it is a factor not to be overlooked, and its 

 utterances are considered with a certain respect. 



Few would deny that the facts recorded in its pages have 

 been a stimulus to research during the past few centuries. 



Whereas a large proportion of the Bible was a terra incog- 

 nita to the historian of the past, it is so no longer. Not only 

 have the books of the New Testament been pushed back on 

 strictly historic and literary grounds to the century whence 

 they professedly spring, so that their contents may no longer 

 be regarded as mythical; but also the facts recorded in the 

 Old Testament are taking their places among the materials 

 which the historian of antiquity must digest and reckon 

 with. The historic framework of the Old Testament, so far as 

 it is not purely internal, is established in the main as his- 

 torical, though not yet confirmed in all its details. Egj^pt 

 and the East are rapidly yielding up their secrets, archseo- 

 logy and linguistic lore are contributing their testimonj^ 

 and Avith rare exceptions, if any, it is confirmatory of the 

 genuineness and antiquity of the biblical narrative. 



2. The scientific man is increasingly conscious of the 

 limitation of his powers and functions. 



Every addition to the known opens a new vista into the 

 unknown. Specialisation is the order of the day. Physical 

 science is itself only a specialised branch of universal science. 



Many things are given up Avliich were the delight of old 

 times. Men no longer hunt for the philosopher s stone, for 

 the secret of renewal of yoath, for a method of attaining 

 perpetual motion. The investigator of nature has ceased to 

 look for Power, and is content with Process ; he does not peer 

 into a gland with his microscope in the hope of finding the 

 ego there. Intent on the secret of the origin of life, he lias 

 given up — or seems to be on the point of giving up — the 

 idea that the Hving proceeds from the non-Hving without the 

 intervention of preceding life. 



3. The scientific man no longer stumbles at some of the 

 old difficulties which have called out the ingenuity of so 

 many "reconcilers." 



