412 
benevolence , and wisdom, as well as in His power and eternity. And 
it is surely by tracing the signs of design in nature, and understanding 
the various uses of the organs of the body and the marvellous laws of 
adaptation and compensation throughout nature, that we may best arrive 
at a higher appreciation of God’s wisdom and goodness ;-better than 
we ever could attain if in a state of ignorance of nature. On the other 
hand, religion, in its turn, has especially benefited our natural science, 
and above all “the science of man,” by throwing light upon what was 
felt by the earnest heathen philosophers to be dark as regards the origin 
of evil, and difficult as regards man’s nature and future destiny. It as 
taught us God’s mercy in a way that no mere natural science could have ever 
reached, and thus has enabled us to understand how the evil m the world 
“that mars the fair face of creation,” is to be redressed by the Creator. But 
I must pass on to another part of Dr. Gladstone’s paper, -that m which he 
pleads for a “larger introduction of the study of natural science into our 
schools of theology.” I am afraid we ought to be warned to be cautious as 
to this, from actual experience of what might be the result. am n ge, 
believe, turned out Dr. Colenso somewhat better taught in the science 
of the day than in theology. It would depend upon how science is to 
be taught. I am afraid that we might have an enormous amount of bigotry 
(I can only use that term) introduced into the teaching of our theological 
colleges, were all that passes for science to take a higher and more positive 
place than it does at present. Only remember what scientific varieties our 
students would have been taught in geology, had there been a Natuial 
Science Tripos” at Oxford during the last twenty or thirty years ; because 
they could only be taught science in one particular way at a time, or t icy 
would be “plucked.” With Mr. Mitchell in the chan-, I may venture, 
perhaps, to speak even a little plainer, and ask him, whether there is not a 
good deal too much of irrational “ cramming" at Cambridge already, m the 
matter of mathematics ? Men are expected to get up certain transcendental 
propositions and repeat them, whether they understand them or not ; and I 
appeal to our chairman, as an eminent Cambridge mathematician, uo say 
whether this is not a fact that may be stated in the face of the world . What 
could have been the advantage of teaching theological students to accept as 
scientific truth the doctrines of “latent heat,”* of the Azoic ages, or he 
Nebular theory? And what might not be taught next as ‘‘science -the 
theory of “ continuity,” perhaps, or Darwinism, or the eternity of matter . 
In this Society, happily, these things ar e intended to be questioned and ,n- 
* I was glad to hear from Dr. Gladstone that the “ incomnet^” of the 
fhoorv of latent beat is now “ fully recognized I was taught to belie 
as “ science ” (with what is in fact co-relative to it, that cold ns a mere nega- 
tion ”) but ventured to oppose it in Vis Inertia Vida, or Fall ^ cu ^^ C ^ 
Science (S 33), several years ago ; but I am really not aware in ^at tex 
book on Chemistry or Natural Philosophy it 
it was in our chemical classes thirty years ago. It mil .be: M 
in the last edition of Bird and Brook’s Elements of Natural Philosophy, 
S$ 1223 -1230, etc. 
