56 THE JUST CLAIMS OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



irreverence, nor of disdain towards honest religions be- 

 lief. There are chiefly two considerations which doubt- 

 less lead many to believe otherwise. The first is the 

 fact that professional scientific work is now, as it was 

 not formerly, almost universally conducted independent- 

 ly of any purely religious teachings or views. But this 

 has been done not from any necessary hostility to religion, 

 but from the logical and practical necessity of the di- 

 vision of labor. The second consideration is that some 

 of the results of scientific thought seem antagonistic to 

 some religious views, and that scientists, as a class, seem 

 to care very little about this. This antagonism is gener- 

 ally only an apparent one, and is usually founded on a 

 misapprehension of what science really intends to set 

 forth. 



Very few theologians take the pains to become 

 thoroughly acquainted with the meaning of the 

 scientific theories which they condemn, and those that 

 do generally cease from their apprehensions of any 

 lasting and serious antagonism. And the reason why 

 even religious scientists care very little about the ap- 

 parent antagonisms, is that they feel sure that two 

 honest and faithful lines of research for truth in one 

 great system of natural, physical, physiological and 

 moral laws, must in the end prove harmonious. Mutual 

 errors will doubtless be corrected in time, and the truth 

 must and will prevail. 



It is quite true that some scientists, malignant towards 

 religion, have made science a tool with which to attack 

 it. But in this respect they are not at all representa- 

 tives of the main body of scientific men, however emi- 

 nent they may happen to be, and they should not be 

 treated as such. 



Allow me to sustain the statement I have made, that 

 science to-day is not hostile to religious belief, by citing 

 the following words of high authority. They are from 



40 



