I 



I HAVE been honoured by a request to write a brief Introduction 

 to the present volume of " Essays on Science and ReHgion." With 

 some diffidence I accepted the responsibiHty — not because the 

 essays themselves stand in need of either praise or commentary, 

 but because I value the association with the distinguished essayists 

 who are here contributing to this old and famous discussion. 



It must, of course, be admitted that discussions may be old and 

 famous without on that account having more than a historic 

 interest. The issues they deal with may be dead and buried. Only 

 students who delight in contemplating the mutations of human 

 beliefs may think it worth while to give them decent sepulture with 

 all the honours of a learned epitaph ; the rest of the world forget 

 that they have ever been. Such cases indeed are fewer than might 

 have been supposed. Even where death seems to be complete, 

 where no smallest trace of some once famous theory appears to 

 survive, a fragment of it will reappear generations later as part of 

 the living tissue of the most advanced speculation. i But in the 

 case of science and religion the main theme has never wholly lost 

 its interest, and each generation insists on resurveying the subject 

 from its own particular point of view. 



When I was asked to contribute this Introduction I vaguely 

 remembered a work published fifty-two years ago by Dr. Draper, 

 entitled " The Conflict between Science and Religion." His 

 volume, which went through many editions, was one of a very 

 respectable series of scientific handbooks, called the International 

 Science Series. It was composed in a most pessimistic vein. He 

 supposed the Western world to be on the edge of an intellectujil 

 revolution, catastrophic in its suddenness, incalculable in its results. 

 The collision between science and religion, rendered acute by the 

 then recent Vatican Council, could end, he thought, only in 

 one way. Educated mankind would suddenly awake and find 



1 See a very curious example of this in Mr. Needham's essay in this 

 book, p. 252. 



