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15UF.LETIN OK THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
Naturally enough there has been consideration of and even anxiety- 
over the effect of the doctrine of evolution upon our religious concep- 
tions. You may at once understand that it is not my intention to 
discuss here any religious (question. But it may be no harm to observe 
that with all his great knowledge of natural laws, Farraday remained 
throughout his life an adherent of a stern and simple division 
of the Presbyterians, and there are many able scientific men who 
can infer the existence of deity as easily from the regularity of 
the laws of nature as from the irregular operation of any of these laws. 
No doubt a great change in our knowledge of natural laws affects 
every department of human thought, and we are led to inquire more- 
closely into what is history and which is legend. But we can perceive 
that an important phase of a supposed conflict between science and 
religion has passed and that no injury has resulted to either. Science 
cannot yield her place or surrender her facts, neither can she suppress 
or even ignore emotions, consciousness, aspirations or convictions which 
are not within her domain. It may be indeed, as Mr. Leslie Stephen 
found out, that evolution alarms religious minds by what might appear 
to be its ultimate tendency. “To have the origin of organic beings,’^ 
he says, “ brought to a period at which no life existed is to imply that 
nothing except matter exists, and that we are but a whirl of atoms.” 
Yet Mr. Stephen is also able to see that evolutionism — the system- 
atic application of the principle of continuity to every department of 
thought — helps us to distinguish principles from dogmas and legends, 
and to estimate the forces which have been at work, which are at 
work, upon the moral nature of mankind ; and he justly says : 
“ Beligion is an essential part of human nature. Men must always 
need some theory of the world, and of their position in it, as consistent 
as possible with the best established truths, some mode of uttering the 
emotions and of setting forth the ethical ideals congenial to the theory, 
and a social organization which may help to soften, purify and elevate 
human relations. The evolutionist perceives the importance of making 
the prominence of theory strong and sound — such as may have nothing 
to dread from the moral unequivocal acceptance of the results of 
scientific and historical enquiry. Therefore, however, great may be 
the change, the evolutionist must recognize the true value of the 
religious instinct in its place, and admit the best importance of finding 
a mode of embodying it in the future. How that is to be done is the 
great problem of the coming generations.” 
