Conclusion 257 



longer expected to assert that the earth is the centre of the universe. 

 But the retreat of Church authority has been gradual and, as usual, 

 unavowed ; there has never come a time when it seemed urgently 

 necessary to consider the new situation created by the revolution 

 in astronomy. The task has been put off from generation to 

 generation, and to this day little has been done to relieve the strain 

 upon the intellect and conscience of the Christian world. Those 

 Churchmen who airily declare that there is no longer any conflict 

 between Christianity and science are either very thoughtless or 

 are wilfully shutting their eyes. There is a very serious conflict, 

 and the challenge was presented not in the age of Darwin, but in 

 the age of Copernicus and Galileo. 



The discovery that the earth, instead of being the centre of a 

 finite universe, like a dish with a dish-cover above it, is a planet 

 revolving round the sun, which itself is only one of millions of stars, 

 tore into shreds the Christian map of the universe. Until that 

 time the ordinary man, whether educated or uneducated, had 

 pictured the sum of things as a three-storeyed building, consisting 

 of heaven, the abode of God, the angels, and beatified spirits ; our 

 earth ; and the infernal regions, where the devil, his angels, and 

 lost souls are imprisoned and tormented. The mystics had been 

 allowed to hold and expound a more spiritual philosophy ; there 

 was never, I believe, a time when the saying that God has His 

 centre everywhere and His circumference nowhere was condemned 

 as unorthodox. But most certainly heaven and hell were geogra- 

 phical expressions. The articles in the Creeds on the descent of 

 Christ into Hades, and His ascent into heaven, afiirm no less ; and 

 it is obvious that the bodily resurrection of Christ is intimately 

 connected with the bodily ascension. The new cosmography thus 

 touched the faith of the Creeds very closely. That the Church 

 interpreted these doctrines literally is shown by the Anglican 

 Articles of Religion, which declare that Christ ascended into 

 heaven " with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the per- 

 fection of man's nature ; and there sitteth." Transubstantiation 

 was denied on the ground that the body of Christ is in heaven, and 

 that it is contrary to the properties of a natural body to be in more 

 than one place at the same time. 



The Copernican astronomy, and all the knowledge about the 

 heavens which has been built upon this foundation, leave no room 

 for a geographical heaven. Space seems to be infinite, or as some 



