15] 



day shut the prospect of a glorious future agaiust a suppliant 

 world lying at the gate of the Eternal, — we care not to speak of 

 them now. So again, there are the rank-and-file of science,, 

 collectors and sorters of facts, and nothing more, with no 

 elevation of thought whatever ; we can only wish for them an 

 advance in education — perhaps a course of Greek and Latin to 

 brighten their wits. But the bickerings of real thinkers on 

 either side ought to come to an end. It ought, too, to be 

 seen that as surely as oscillations of Uranus detected a far-off 

 planet, and Neptune was revealed at last where the Divine 

 hand had ordered his path unseen as yet, so a confessed want 

 in science, when it tries to trace the path to the origin of all 

 phenomena and spring of all power, points with unerring finger 

 to perturbations which may reveal the spot where the action of 

 the Divine will be found. We " look beyond and behind all the 

 forces of nature ; and even the modern doctrine of the con- 

 servation of forces," just telling that the sum of the pheno- 

 menal remains the same, again teaches us to look beyond the 

 material organization, — even to the pre-phenoraenal source 

 of motion, and seek the only answer to the question — Who 

 made and orders all these ? " 



31. That the present scientific results are surely leading the 

 way to a higher religious Philosophy, and will conduct to an 

 advanced Ontology, we have no doubt. At the same Presentposi- 

 time it should be confessed that the present vague- tion. 

 ness of religious belief, that is, absence of dogma in the true 

 sense of the term, is one of the causes of unbelief among some of 

 the best intellects of our time ; though we think the logical re- 

 sults of that unbelief will at length react on the higher religious 

 philosophy. The more earnest, real, and logical science becomes, 

 the more we shall have reason to rejoice. There are no words 

 in Dr. Tyndall's book more to be prized than these, with which 

 we make to him our closing appeal : — We have " but one 

 desire — to know the truth ; and but one fear — to believe a lie^^ 

 (p. 167). 



If it is still for a while to be part of our trial that half- 

 digested theories of science, and private interpretations of 

 scripture'^ are to be put in continual collision by less than 

 half-educated minds on either side, let us have patience. Our 

 forbearance may not be misplaced, if we pause in pressing on 

 those who seem now to be antagonists ; in order that they may 

 have the opportunity of recovering themselves. It is enough 

 for the present, to point out that no one established scientific 

 fact or thoroughly sure scientific theory, has ever been found 

 to contradict the Bible fairly interpreted by common sense. 



