46 
Those who cultivate the dry details of science are a small 
minority compared with those who pursue the more alluring 
and pleasing J>aths of general literature Tte f 7 England 
who constitute the reading and thinking class of hnglana 
agree to accept without much difficulty 
thesis dignified by the name of science. They neither tee 
capable, nor do they care to investigate the P^ ns ^ r f 0 S® 
scientific dogma to be accepted as truth, they regaia omy 
the nopular reputation of the promulgator as a man of science. 
(( if an y new proposition,” says the Saturday Review , 9°“ 
with the authLt P y of an established professor of the scnmce, 
we accept it with the confi^.^wln^a^^^ 
might take the decision of the infallible Churc . 
fession of the Saturday Review may be takenasafairexp^res 
nf the practice of most of the non-scientific class of itnglisn 
men, and also of those who are mere dilettanti cultivators of 
S ° Kmen, therefore, who have attained a certain position of 
rank in the scientific world enter the arena of popular llte ™t“re 
or address the thinking world in popular iectures, and bold y 
maintain that science and Scripture are jrreconcfiable their 
dicta are at once received as if they were founded upon abso 
lute and incontestable demonstration. The foundation of 
Victoria Institute is in itself a caution to the unscientific 
world to pause in the acceptance of such proposi ion 
careful investigation. A body of men who ^ve cuhivated, 
n ome or other of them, nearly every branch ot human Kno 
ledee which goes under the vague term of science, have here 
united themselves in the assertion that, so far . as 
vestigated the questions of philosophy and scienc , y 
not found the principles of philosophy, or the laws figsrf 
science presenting any real discordance with the great tiuths 
reveafod in Holy Scripture. They go, however, a step further 
They are students, both of the book of Nature as dispkyed 
the works of the Creator, and also of that book which they 
believe to be a revelation of the highest truths by that same 
Creator to His creature, man. Their faith that these books are 
by the same Author has been unshaken by their 
knowledge. They hold this faith upon higher principles than 
those ofomere scientific demonstration or mere philosophical 
induction. They are not afraid that any discord or discrep y 
can really be found between true philosophy or sound science 
and revelation; and therefore they are willing, nay, anxious, to 
investigate, with care and with that love of 
the root of their religious principles, all the objections 
urged, either as philosophical or scientific, against the iiibie. 
