1880. | The Critics of Evolution. 399 
nature in the philosophical spirit, and simply to wait and possess 
yourselves in patience, for the questions in dispute will, ere long, 
adjust themselves as others have done. He has used them, he 
admits, in times past, “ but now considers them almost like trifling 
with the words of Scripture and the teachings of nature.”? 
“ He who believes the Scriptures to have proceeded from Him 
who is the Author of nature, may well expect to find the same sort 
of difficulties in them as are found in the constitution of nature.” 
This passage is from the writings of Origen, “the father of bibli- 
cal criticism and exegesis in Christendom,” and is probably the 
text upon which Bishop Butler based his “ Analogy of Religion, 
Natural and Revealed, to the constitution and course of Nature,” 
“the ablest treatise on the philosophy of religion.” 
Prof. Dawson admits that “organizations styling themselves 
‘the Church,’ whose warrant from the Bible is often of the slen- 
derest, have denounced and opposed new scientific truths and 
persecuted their upholders, but they have just as often denounced 
the Bible itself, and religious doctrines founded on it.” He 
remarks that “ theology is not religion, and may often have very 
little in common with true religion or with the Bible. When 
discussions arise between theology and other sciences, it is only 
a pity that either side should indulge in what has been termed 
the odium theologicum, but which is unfortunately not confined to 
divines?” “ Perhaps,” he continues, “the most troublesome oppo- 
sition to science, or rather to the progress of science, has sprung 
from the tenacity with which we hold to old ideas.” The science, 
which was at one time the best attainable, roots itself in men’s 
minds and thus “becomes a difficult matter to wrench from its 
hold, and its advocates are too apt to invoke in its defense politi- 
cal, social and ecclesiastical powers, and to support it by the 
authority of revelation, even when this, rightly understood, might 
be quite as favorable to the new views.” 
A work by Prof. Dawson entitled? “ The Story of the Earth 
and Man,” is, by many, esteemed a forcible protest against evolu- 
Lec Religion and Science; a series of Sunday lectures on the Relation of Natural 
and Revealed Religion, or the Truths revealed in Nature and Scripture.” By 
Joseph LeConte, Prof, of Geology and Natural History in the University of Califor- 
nia. 1874, 
i The Story of the Earth and Man.” By J. W. Dawson, LL.D, F.R.S, F.G.S. 
Toronto and Montreal, 1873, p. 339, which has been severely criticised by Dr. Asa 
tay in “ Darwiniana,” pp. 245-25) 
