48 A. T. SCHOFIELD, M.D.^ ON SCIENCE AND THE UNSEEN WORLD. 



thing (if a natural product) or in inventing a machine to make 

 it (if machine made). In hoili cases the article is the product 

 of mind and not of a machine, only in the first case it is 

 primarily, and in the second, secondarily produced. So if all 

 nature is intelligible and science reveals plan and order every- 

 wliere, a Mind must liave produced it, and a Mind great enough 

 to be capable of such a work. This line of argument is doubtless 

 familiar enough to this Institute, but while I do not dwell upon 

 it, it is well to call to mind at the outset that the very existence 

 and possibility of science postulates the existence of God. 



Nature necessitates the concept of an omniscient mind ; 

 or as Lord Kelvin has put it, "Science, if you think truly, forces 

 to a belief in God." 



" There remains," says Herbert Spencer, " the one absolute 

 certainty that we are ever in the presence of an Infinite and 

 Eternal energy from which all things proceed." 



Science, however, is limited in its investigations. It is mainly 

 a study of effects. It stops short at first causes as before an 

 impenetrable barrier. Its sphere is the study of what exists, but 

 it knows nothing of the ultimate origin of things. 



It seems to me that where science ends there revelation 

 begins. Science ends with the material universe and man, then 

 revelation begins and leads us up to God. Science stops short of 

 first causes, and here revelation lifts the veil and shows the 

 origin of all is Divine. Science and revelation, as has so often 

 been said, can never be truly antagonistic, as their spheres, 

 scarcely ever touch. There is no need for a revelation of what we 

 can ourselves discern, and science can discover much that was 

 once thought beyond its powers. There is now a science of the 

 unseen world as well as of the material universe, and Sir Oliver 

 Lodge has written a large book about it. 



But however far science may penetrate it can never reach 

 the sphere of revelation. Science may, as we have seen, 

 postulate a God, or at any rate, an omniscient Mind, or first 

 principle, but it can never discern Christianity. And lierein, 

 in passing, lies the essential difference between bare Theism 

 and the Christian faith. The one, in a sense, can almost be 

 realized by science, the other is a revelation from God, or I 

 might say to avoid cavil, professes to be so. 



" Earth s crammed with Heaven, 

 And every common bush aflame with God. 

 But only those who see — take off their shoes: 

 The rest sit round and gather l)hxckberries." 



