SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 117 



rigid defenders of an unchangeable faith, settled to its minuti^ some cen- 

 turies ago, need fear the doctrine. 



"We offer these thoughts by way of caution. Not that we believe that 

 religionists need warning more than scientists, but because we speak to the 

 former rather than to the latter." 



There are men who, like Eev. John H. Hopkins in his lecture on the 

 "True relations between Science and Eeligion," take the ground that no- 

 thing is more untrue or unfortunate than the idea that these two things are 

 antagonistic. The theologian expounds the revealed Word of God, the sci- 

 entific man is simj)ly an interpreter of his wonderful works for our in- 

 formation, and in many respects a teacher of the theologian. As a rule, 

 scientific men are candid, fair-minded seekers after truth, and give to the 

 world merely the results of their researches and what they believe to be the 

 necessary and logical outgrowth therefrom, building up their theories on 

 the basis of the "coincidence of observed facts with theoretical require- 

 ments," and remorselessly abandoning them when convinced of their insuf- 

 ficiency or untenability. 



The pursuit of scientific subjects stimulates thought, and even when 

 scientists fail of finding what they are immediately in search of they fre- 

 quently make other discoveries which are of vast benefit to mankind, and 

 give us a more exalted conception of the Deity. Science and religion are 

 inseparable and even essential one to the other. No man need fear that the 

 truth will be obscured by the revelations of science, even should all the 

 scientists of the world combine to accomplish this object. "The truth can- 

 not conflict with Grod's Word however much it may conflict with man's in- 

 terpretation of it." 



Having indicated above some of the admitted points of agreement be- 

 tween advanced and learned religionists and the advocates of the evolution 

 theory, we qtiote from Huxley's lecture upon "The Demonstrative Evidence 

 of Evolution," some of the more interesting features of his demonstration 

 of the gradual successive changes in animal structure during past ages: 



"The proof of evolution cannot be complete until we have obtained de- 

 monstrative evidence, and that evidence has of late years been forthcoming 

 in considerable and continually increasing quantity. Indeed, it is some- 

 what surprising how large is the quantity of that evidence, and how satis- 

 factory is its nature, if we consider that our obtaining such evidence de- 

 pends upon the occurrence in a particular locality of an undisturbed series 

 deposited through a long period of time, which requires the further condit- 

 tion that each of these deposits should be such that the animal remains im- 

 bedded in them are not much disturbed, and are imbedded in a state of 

 great preservation. Evidence of this kind, as I have said, has of late years 

 been accumulating largely, and in respect to many divisions of the animal 

 kingdom. But I will select for my present purpose only one particular 

 case, which is more adapted to the object I have in view, as it relates to the 

 origin, to what we may call the pedigree, of one of our most familiar do- 



