12 Prof. Parsons on the Origin of Species. 
to this thought somewhat more widely. But aside from this, and 
indeed from any reference to this or any special question or the- 
ory, may it not be well to remember, that natural science belongs, 
mainly at least, to the intelligence of man, and to his outer life, 
while religion belongs, mainly again, to his affections, his motives 
and his inner life. Hence, entirely different faculties and func- 
tions of our common nature are brought into exercise in reference 
to science, from those which are invoked by religion. It is a goo 
and wholesome thing for a man to become religious because he 
chooses to be so, and loves to be so; and it is good for him to 
compel himself to make this choice. He cannot indeed become 
religious on any other ground or in any other way. And there- 
fore Divine Providence has mercifully guarded him, not only 
from the external compulsion, which, as all men see, cannot 
reach the heart, but from the compulsion of his own intelligence, 
which might be equally injurious. 
In investigating the claims of science, he must call upon his 
intellect to look sharply at the facts, the logic, the arguments 
and the conclusions; and this is all, or nearly all. But he must 
choose and hold his faith, not by means which logic disdains 
and denies, but by asking of logic to do all that it can do and 
and the best that it can do, as the instrument of something high- 
er than itself, which can take up and complete the work which 
mere logic must leave unfinished. 
How easily could God have written his word and his truth in 
fire upon the sky, and in gold upon every leaf or stone, if all he 
had desired was the intellectual advancement of man. e may 
infer from his course of providence, that he desires this, only as 
a means to an end; and as an instrument of that moral and af- 
fectional improvement, which must be man’s own codperative 
work. ‘Therefore it is, that religion never has been, and I think 
never will be fortified by the demonstrations which belong to 
ascertained science ;'and hence it is also that no science, and no 
translate them in his own way. It is an old saying, that what 
one brings home from foreign travel, depends upon what he car- 
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