igoj\ Baskerville — Science and the People. 71 



Bibical chronology. The highest teaching of scientific veri- 

 ties is the absolute necessity for the existence of God. In fact, 

 one need not go far for a chemical confirmation of the resur- 

 rection, as death is but a phase of our continual internal 

 change; "so when this corruptible shall have put onincorrup- 

 tion and this mortal shall have put on immortality," our 

 natural body sown in dishonor and weakness, shall be raised 

 a spiritual body, clothed in glory and power; "and as we 

 have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the 

 image of the heavenly." It is only in the most modern times 

 that the scientific spirit, which looks to the relative and tem- 

 porarily excludes the absolute, has begun to be fully applied 

 and extended to ideas of every order. 



I am by no means unmindful of the dogmatism of science 

 at times, for it may be recalled that Daguerre was actually 

 temporarily incarcerated in an asylum because he maintained 

 he could transfer his likeness to a tin plate; Franklin's paper 

 on lightning conductors was laughed at and not published by 

 the Royal Society; and Galvani was attacked by his collea- 

 gues, designated a know-nothing, and called "the frog's 

 dancing master." The Count de Gasparin even wrote in the 

 Journal des Debats, "Take care; the representation of the 

 exact sciences are on their way to become the inquisitors of 

 our days." 



Science does not pretend to say the la ; word in regard to 

 the universe, but it builds hypotheses upon observed and 

 unobserved facts which are altered or cast aside in the light 

 of all new correct^ obtained facts. It is ever ready to declare 

 the increasing uncertainty of many delightful and ideal con- 

 ceits, which is not to be taken as vacillation, but as evolution, 

 growth. The late distinguished Lord Playfair at the Aber- 

 deen meeting of the British Association said: "The changing 

 theories which the world despises are the leaves of the tree 

 of science drawing nutriment to the parent stems, and enabl- 

 ing it to put forth new branches and to produce fruit; and 

 though the leaves fall and decay, the very products of decay 



